'DEBATE  ON  ADOPTION 

OF  THIS 

REPORT  OF  NAVAL  COMMITTEE, 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  JULY  27,  1876. 


Mr.  DxiNFORD.  Mr.  Speaker,  in  the  little 
time  allotted  me  for  the  discussion  of  the  re¬ 
port  now  before  the  House  it  will  be  impossible 
to  more  than  barely  allude  to  a  few  of  the 
questions  involved  in  the  investigation  upon 
which  this  report  is  founded. 

I  quote  from  the  speech  of  the  gentleman 
from  Alabama  : 

The  present  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  being  forti¬ 
fied  with  seven  years  of  experience  in  his  office, 
with  a  patronage  of  $2.0^0,000  annually,  with 
thousands  of  followers,  many  of  whom  were  de¬ 
pendent  upon  his  will  or  caprice  for  their  bread, 
determined  to  resist  such  an  investigation  as  would 
lay  bare  the  abuses,  errors,  violations  of  law  and 
frauds  which  are  given  to  the  public  in  the  ma¬ 
jority  report  which  is  now  pending  before  the 
House. 

I  was  astonished  that  such  a  declaration 
should  fall  from  the  lips  of  any  member  of  this 
committee,  when  I  re  me  pi  be  r  that  out  of  more 
than  four  thousand  printed  pages  of  testimony 
taken  by  the  committee  fully  one  thousand  of 
these  pages  were  furnished  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  ahd  officers  of  his  Department  in 
order  that  the  committee  might  be  aided  in 
..pursuit  of  the  object  they  had  in  vino.  More 
than  one  thousand  closely-printed  pages  of  this 
matter  required  four  months  of  preparation  in 
the  office  of  the  Secretary  and  in  his  various 
.  Bureaus,  and  have  been  furnished  to  the  com¬ 
mittee,  and  are  now  published  as  part  of  the 
testimony. 

Mr.  Speaker,  when  I  remember  that  when 
this  committee  went  armed  with  a  commission 
from  this  body  to  every  navy  yard  upon  the 
Atlantic  coast,  armed  with  a  warrant  to  inves¬ 
tigate,  the  committee  were  received,  from  Nor¬ 
folk  to‘  Kittery,  the  navy  yard  gates  were 
thrown  open  and  the  committee  were  received 
with  salutes  that  indicated  the  dignity  and  im¬ 
portance  of  the  investigation;  and  when  I  re¬ 
member  that  from  the  commandant  of  the 
yards  to  all  the  employees  witnesses  were  sub¬ 
poenaed  and  were  freely  offered  and  freely  tes¬ 
tified;  when  I  recollect  that  every  discharged 
employee  around  the  navy  yards  was  free  to 
come  beiore  the  committee  and  tell  his  story, 
whatever  it  might  be;  and  when  I  remember 
that  here  in  the  rooms  of  the  committee  the 
doors  were  open  to  any  one  who  might  offer 
himself  or  herself  as  a  witness  to  testify  to  any 
wrong  or  imagined  abuse  existing  in  the 
Department;  and  when  I  remember  that 
during  the  four  months  of  this  investiga¬ 
tion  the  doors  were  closed,  absolutely 
closed,  in  the  face  of  the  Secretary  and  his 
Bureau  officers  and  every  person  intended  to 
be  affected  injuriously  by  this  investigation,  I 
repeat  that  it  does  seem  to  me  strange  in¬ 
deed  that  such  a  declaration  should  be  made 
by  the  gentleman  from  Alabama.  What  wit¬ 
ness  refused  to  appear?  What  witness  failed 
to  respond  to  the  subpoena  of  the  committee? 

I  have  been  unable  to  discover  in  the  conduct 
either  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  or  any  of 
his  Bureau  officers  any  disposition  to  shirk  the 
fullest  and  fairest  investigation  of  the  conduct 
of  the  affairs  of  the  Navy  Department  in  the 
last  seven  years  of  its  administration. 


I  need  not  say  to  the  House  that  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  committee  did  not  shirk  the  respon¬ 
sibility  imposed  upon  them  by  the  resolutions 
under  which  they  were  acting.  They  did  not 
fail  to  respond  to  the  request  of  any  person,  so 
far  as  I  am  informed,  who  desired  to  come  as 
a  witness  before  the  committee.  In  rending 
the  testimony  taken  by  the  committee,  we  find 
that  inquiry  was  made  of  various  witnesses  as 
to  whether  they  knew  of  any  fraud,  any  error, 
or  any  abuse  existing  in  the  Department,  or 
any  of  the  Bureaus  of  the  Department,  if  a 
negative  response  was  elicited,  then  almost 
universally  that  question  was  followed  up 
with  the  further  question,  “Do  you  know  of 
any  person  who  can  give  us  any  information 
in  relation  to  any  frauds,  abuses  or  *  errors  ex¬ 
isting  in  the  administration  ot  the  Navy  De¬ 
partment?”  And  so  witnesses  were  followed 
up,  and  wherever  there  was  the  slightest 
hope  of  getting  at  a  fact  which  would  iu  any 
way  bring  to  the  knowledge  of  the  committee 
any  fraud,  corruption,  or  actual  abuse  in  the 
Department,  the  witness  was  hunted  up,  no 
matter  where  he  was',  whether  in  the  Depart¬ 
ment  or  a  discharged  employee,  or  wherever 
he  might  be. 

Now,  it  will  not  do  to  come  before  the 
House  at  this  day  and  say  that  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  stood  in  the  way  of  this  investi¬ 
gation.  After  he  had  been  excluded  from  the 
committee-room,  after  his  Bureau  officers  had 
been  excluded  from  this  investigation  for  a 
period  of  four  months,  while  hundreds  of  wit¬ 
nesses  were  being  examined  and  their  testi¬ 
mony  taken,  testimony  intended  to  affect  di¬ 
rectly  the  integrity  and  character  of  the  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Navy  and  his  Bureau  officers,  dur¬ 
ing  all  that  time  the  seal  of  secrecy  was  placed 
on  the  lips  of  the  members  of  the  committee, 
of  the  official  reporter,  and  of  every  one  admit¬ 
ted  inside  of  the  committee-room. 

I  propose  to  call  attention  to  a  few  of  the 
matters  contained  in  the  report,  a  few  matters 
that  are  charged  against  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  as  being  violations  of  law.  The  first 
subject  to  which  I  shall  call  attention  is  the 
transfer  of  funds  from  one  Bureau  in  the  De¬ 
partment  to  another. 

In  this  connection  I  want  to  speak  for  a  few 
moments  of  the  use  of  the  money  appropriated 
for  the  eight  sloops-ol-war.  The  appropriation 
of  $3,200,000,  made  by  the  Forty-second  Con¬ 
gress  for  the  special  purpose  of  building  eight 
steam  sloops  of- war,  was  used,  as  the  testi¬ 
mony  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  shows — 
used  prior  to  the  meeting  of  the  Forty-third 
Congress,  together  with  every  other  appropria¬ 
tion  made  to  the  Department  for  that  fiscal 
year — for  the  purpose  of  putting  our  Navy  into 
a  condition  to  meet  an  exigency  that  seemed 
to  be  upon  the  country  growing  out  of  the 
Virginius  affair.  The  country  wiil  remember 
that  affair,  will  remember  that  in  1873.  the 
steamer  Virginius  was  seized  by  a  Spanish 
cruiser  and  American  citizens  found  on  board 
were  ruthlessly  butchered  in  cold  blood.  It 
aroused  a  feeling  of  indignation  throughout 
the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and 


9 


it  seemed  for  a  time  that  a  war  with  Spain  was 
imminent.  Our  Navy  was  in  no  condition  to 
meet  the  navy  of  Spain  or  of  any  of  the  great 
European  Powers.  The  Secretary  of  the  N avy, 
acting,  as  he  testifies,  in  the  belief  that  it  was 
his  duty  as  the  administrative  officer  of  that 
Department  to  prepare  for  war,  did  make  use 
of  and  expend  the  whole  of  the  appropriation 
for  the  eight  sloops  in  preparing  the  Navy  for 
that  exigency.  The  President  of  the  United 
States,  his  Cabinet,  every  patriotic,  American 
citizen,  looked  to  him  in  his  preparations  with 
anxiety,  hoping  that  he  might  be  ready  when 
we  were  compelled  to  strike  the  blow  or  when 
the  blow  should  come  upon  us. 

This  is  one  of  the  “violations  of  law”  to 
which  the  attention  of  the  American  Congress 
is  called  in  this  report;  one  of  the  “violations 
of  law”  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and 
perhaps  the  very  gravest  upon  which  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  this  committee  propose,  if  the  Ju¬ 
diciary  Committee  shall  see  fit,  that  lie  shall 
be  impeached  before  Congress  and  the  country. 
Why,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  he  had  not  done  just 
what  he  did  in  this  exigency  he  would  have 
been  derelict  in  his  duty. 

More  than  this,  when  Congress  met  in  De¬ 
cember  the  condition  of  this  appropriation  was 
brought  at  once  to  the  attention  of  Congress. 
The  Secretary  came  to  the  Committee  on  Ap¬ 
propriations  and  said  to  them,  “I  have  ex¬ 
pended  all  the  money  you  a  ave  me  for  the 
purpose  of  building  these  eight  sloops-of-war; 
I  'have  expended  all  the  appropriations  made 
for  my  Department;  I  am  without  money.” 
The  committee  and  the  House  and  the  coun¬ 
try,  responding  to  his  demand,  gave  him  $4-,- 
000,000  in  order  to  replace  the  appropriation 
for  the  eight  sloops-of-war  as  well  as  continue 
the  force  of  the  different  bureaus  of  the  Navy 
up  to  the  beginning  of  the  next  fiscal  year. 
This  is  one  of  the  matters,  I  repeat,  to  which 
the  attention  of  the  country  is  called  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  impeachment  of  the  Secretary 
'of  the  Navy. 

Another  matter  dwelt  upon  in  the  report  of 
the  majority  is  the  present  condition  of  the 
Navy  as  compared  with  what  it  was  some 
years  ago.  Upon  this  subject  I  do  not  propose 
to  speak  further  than  to  call  the  attention  of 
the  House  to  the  rebuilding,  as  it  is  termed  in 
the  report  of  the  majority,  of  old  vessels  un¬ 
der  the  name  of  repairs.  The  conduct  on  the 
part  of  the  Secretary  is  criticised  as  a  violation 
of  law,  and  the  House  is  to  be  called  upon  to 
impeach  him  for  this  conduct. 

Now,  I  desire  to  state  to  the  House  just 
what  this  rebuilding  of  old  vessels  under  the 
name  of  repairs  spoken  of  by  the  majority  of 
the  committee  consists  in.  Annually  Con¬ 
gress  appropriates  to  the  Bureau  of  Construc¬ 
tion  and  Repair  a  stipulated  sum  of  money, 
and  the  present  chief  of  the'Bureau  of  Con¬ 
struction  and  Repair,  with  the  knowledge  and 
consent  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  instead 
of  going  to  the  various  navy  yards  of  the 
country,  and  using  his  annual  appropriation  in 
the  repair  of  a  dozen  or  more  old,  rotten,  un¬ 
seaworthy  hulks,  built  of  white  oak  timber 
which  came  down  to  us  from  the  war,  sloops 
and  steamers  which  served  their  purpose, 
hastily  constructed,  some  built  in  less  than  one 
hundred  days,  sent  out  as  cruisers  during  the 
war,  and  which  are  now  almost  entirely  worth¬ 
less  from  defective  material  used  in  their  con¬ 
struction— I  say  that  instead  of  using  his  en- 
tixe  appropriation  upon  a  dozen  or  a  half  dozen 


of  those  old  vessels,  the  chief  of  the  Bureau,, 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Secretary, 
has  seen  fit  to  go  into  the  navy  yards  and  take 
out  entirely  not  only  its  masts  and  spars,  but 
its  keel  from  one  of  those  old  vessels,  replacing 
them  entirely  with  substantial  material,  es¬ 
pecially  of  live  oak,  giving  to  the  Navy  each 
year  in  this  way  one  good,  substantial  vessel 
which  will  last  almost  half  a  century.  This  is 
the  manner  in  which  the  Secretary  and  tho 
chief  of  the  Bureau  have  been  expending  the 
appropriations  for  constructions  and  repairs 
from  year  to  year.  In  the  judgment  of  the1 
minority  of  the  committee  it  is  the  better  econ¬ 
omy  and  wisdom  on  their  part  to  enter  into 
this  sort  of  rebuilding  of  a  vessel  rather  than 
taking  out  a  rotten  plank  here  and  there  from 
a  number  of  vessels  which  are  to  disappear 
entirely  from  the  Naval  Register  in  a  short 
time  on  account  of  unseaworthiness. 

Another  matter  complained  of  largely,  and 
upon  which  two  hundred  pages  of  testimony 
have  been  taken,  is  the  manner  in  which  labor 
is  put  in  the  various  navy  yards  of  the  country  * 
It  is  true  now,  as  it  has  been  for  the  last  half 
century,  that  to  some  extent  at  least  politicians 
control  the  labor  employed  in  the  various  navy 
yards.  Local  politicians,  notably  members  of 
Congress,  come  to  the  various  chiefs  and  com¬ 
mandants  of  the  navy  yards  and  others  having 
charge  of  the  employment  of  labor,  and  in 
this  way  we  have  no  doubt  that  occasionally 
an  unskilled  workman  replaces  a  skilled  me¬ 
chanic. 

But,  as  I  said  a  moment  ago,'  this  matter  of 
laboring  men,  this  matter  of  politics  in  the 
navy  yards  and  every  department  o  Jthe  Gov- 
meut  has  existed  for  half  a  century.  Take  the 
very  city  of  Norfolk,  and  there  is  greater 
complaint  made  of  political  influence  in  the 
navy  yard  at  Norfolk  than  any  other  place  in 
the  country.  In  that  very  city  of  Norfolk 
there  is  not  a  single  uniformed  or  ununiformed 
police  officer  upon  the  streets  who  dojs  not 
belong  to  the  party  known  in  Virginia  as  the 
Conservative  party. 

Take  the  city  of  New  York,  take  the  Demo¬ 
cratic  State  governments  throughout  the 
lenghth  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  I  ask 
whether  the  employment  of  skilled  and  un¬ 
skilled  labor,  the  various  watchmen  about  the 
public  buildings  of  the  country,  are  not  em¬ 
ployed  and  put  in  their  places  by  reason  ol  the 
fact  that  they  belong  to  the  party  in  power? 
This  House  of  Representatives  furnishes  a  no¬ 
table  example  of  political  influence  in  the  em¬ 
ployment  of  subordinates.  Why,  Mr.  Speaker, 
the  Clerk’s  desk  had  been  filled  for  twelve 
years  before  the  Democratic  party  came  into 
power  in  this  end  of  the  Capitol  by  a  gentle¬ 
man  whose  honesty,  integrity  and  great 
knowledge  of  the  business  in  which  he  was  en¬ 
gaged  made  him  so  eminent  (I  am  speaking 
now  of  the  Clerk  of  the  last  House  of  Repre¬ 
sentatives)  that  his  superior  as  a  Clerk  was 
never  known  in  the  history  of  our  Government. 
And  yet  he  was  displaced  on  the  very  first  day 
of  the  session.  It  may  be  said  this  is  to  some 
extent  a  political  position,  and  I  concede  it.  I 
do  not  complain  that  the  majority  put  a  party 
friend  in  that  position.  It  was  their  right  to 
do  it,  and  no  man  of  any  political  party  of  the 
country  expected  them  to  do  anything  else, 
and  I  am  gratified  to  say  the  present  incum¬ 
bent  is  in  all  respects  a  perfect  gentleman. 
They  not  only  did  this,  but  they  went  through 
that  office  and  cleaned  it  out  almost  entirely. 


o 


O 


They  began  with  the  Doorkeeper’s  department, 
and  they  went  through  that  in  the  same  effective , 
efficient  and  thorough  manner.  They  did  not 
stop  even  until  they  got  down  to  the  bath¬ 
rooms  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  re¬ 
moved  from  his  place  an  old  man  who  had 
been  there  for  years  and  years  in  charge  of  the 
towels  and  the  soap  and  the  baths  of  the  House, 
and  replaced  him  by  a  young,  vigorous  gentle¬ 
man  from  some  State  out  West,  who  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  party  in  power.  So  with 
the  post-office  of  the  House,  and  so  with  every 
other  place  that  the  party  in  power  in  this  end 
of  the  Capitol  could  touch.  Political  influence 
and  political  power  were  felt  “all  along  the 
lines.”  And  now  it  does  not  come  with  a  very 
good  grace  from  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  a.  majority  report  to  com¬ 
plain  that  in  the  navv-yards  and  elsewhere 
throughout  the  country  the  Republican  party 
have  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  political  in¬ 
fluence,  and  that  the  politicians  in  some  in¬ 
stances  have  directed  the  employment  of  labor 
in  the  various  navy  yards. 

But  I  must  pass  from  this  subject,  and  in 
fact  from  the  entire  subject  in  a  few  minutes 
more.  I  have  only  time  to  call  attention  to 
these  matters  in  a  brief  and  hurried  way. 
There  are  many  things  complained  of  and 
magnified  largely  in  the  report  of  the  major¬ 
ity  ;  the  testimony  of  witnesses,  extreme  wit¬ 
nesses,  being  quoted,  and  conclusioMS  drawn 
from  their  testimony  that  a  fair  and  full  read¬ 
ing  of  the  testimony  will  in  nowise  warrant.  I 
have  alluded  to  some  of  the  chief  matters  of 
complaint  against  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
He  is  charged  with  conniving  at  fraud,  with 
being  guilty  of  wrongs  against  the  Govern¬ 
ment,  with  having  betrayed  the  great  trust  re¬ 
posed  in  him  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  coun¬ 
try,  and  with  having  used  it  for  the  advancement 
of  his  personal  friends.  These  charges  are 
freely  made  thoughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  report.  The  matters  that  I  have  alluded 
to  are  specimens  of  the  charges  ma'de,  and  I 
take  it  that  upon  a  full  reading  of  the  testi¬ 
mony,  if  any  gentlemen  shall  ever  see  fit  to 
read  it  all,  they  will  learn  that  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  lias  conducted  the  affairs  of  his  de¬ 
partment  in  the  interest  of  the  whole  country  ; 
that  in  the  repairs  put  upon  the  Navy,  that  in 
the  use  of  the  different  appropriations,  and 
that  in  the  general  direction  of  the  Department 
he  has  not  departed  from  a  line  of  honesty  and 
faithfulness  toward  the  country. 

He  has  spent  seven  years  in  the  position  of  a 
Cabinet  Officer.  He  is  still  a  young  man,  and 
he  may  well  feel  proud  of  the  position  he  occu¬ 
pies  and  has  occupied  so  honorably  for  so  long 
a  time.  Perhaps  in  the  declaration  I  am  about 
to  quote  may  be  found  the  animus  of  this  re¬ 
port.  It  is  declared  in  the  platform  of  the  St. 
Louis  convention  that  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  has.  been  enriching  himself  and  his 
friends  by  selling  his  offices.  I  know  that  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  country  are  hard- 
pressed  ;  I  know  that  for  eight  months  almost 
they  have  been  in  session  in  this  end  of  the 
Capitol  with  all  the  great  economic  questions 
of  the  day  lying  at  their  very  doors  ;  and  they 
have  failed  in  a  session  of  eight  months  to 
bring  to  the  country  a  single  affirmative  prop¬ 
osition  of  any  character  or  kind  whatever. 
There  lies  the  question  of  our  revenues  just 
where  you  found  it  ;  there  are  the  great  ques¬ 
tions  of  finance  just  where  you  found  them  ; 
there  are  the  questions  of  transportation  just 


where  you  found  them.  Has  it  become  neces¬ 
sary  in  order  to  go  to  the  country  for  “  Tilden 
and  reform”  that  you  strike  down  the  bureau 
officers  of  the  Navy  Department  ;  that  you 
wound  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  that 
by  this  report  you  place  a  stigma  upon  their 
characters  that  is  not  justified  by  the  testi¬ 
mony  taken  by  this  committee  ? 

Mr.  GARFIELD.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  rise  to  ad¬ 
dress  myself  only  to  one  point  in  this  report. 
I  see  that  after  seven  months  of  incubation 
the  committee  have  finally  laid  an  egg  out  of 
wffiich  they  are  able  to  hatch  only  a  doubt. 

The  result  of  all  their  work  is  that  they  are 
in  doubt  whether  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
has  violated  any  law  or  not.  Being  uncertain 
wLether  any  living  thing  can  be  hatched  from 
that  egg,  they  turn  it  over  to  another  commit  • 
tee  to  be  set  on  during  the  summer,  and,  L? 
possible,  to  be  hatched  next  winter.  Now  the 
chief  point  in  their  report — the  Samson  of 
their  case,  as  I  understand  it — is  this:  They 
have  examined  the  testimony  and  have  found 
what  they  think  in  one  instance  is  a  violation 
of  the  law  of  the  United  States.  And  it  is 
this  one  allegation  of  a  violation  that  I  rise  to 
speak  upon.  They  quoted  to  us  the  statute  of 
June  17, 1844,  which  is  in  these  words: 

That  no  person  shall  be  employed  or  continued 
abroad  to  receive  and  pay  money  for  the  use  of 
the  naval  service  on  foreign  stations,  whether 
under  contract  or  otherwise,  who  has  not  been, 
or  shall  not  be,  appointed  by  and  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  Senate.  (5  Statutes  at  Large, 
page  703.) 

This  is  very  broad  and  sweeping  language, 
and  the  committee  say  that  in  obedience  to 
this  statute  immediately  after  its  passage  the 
name  of  Baring  Brothers  was  sent  to  the 
Senate  and  by  them  confirmed  as  the  foreign 
fiscal  agents  of  the  Navy  Department.  Then 
the  gentleman  turns  triumphantly  and  says 
there  was  again  a  confirmation  by  the  Senate 
in  1870  of  the  appointment  of  Seligmann  & 
Brothers.  Why  did  not  the  President  send  to 
the  Senate  the  name  of  Jay  Cooke,  McCulloch 
&  Co.,  in  1873,  to  be  confirmed  in  accordance 
with  this  law?  The  gentleman  who  spoke 
yesterday  [Mr.  Lewis]  said  that  doubtless  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  refused  to  send  in 
the  name  of  McCulloch  for  fear  the  Senate 
would  have  rejected  it;  and,  if  so,  the  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Navy  would  not  have  a  chance  to 
carry  out  his  own  purposes.  Why  was  it  that 
no  names  wrere  sent  in  between  1844  and  1876? 
Why  was  no  name  sent  in  during  that  period 
of  thirty-two  years  after  the  passage  of  the  act 
of  1844?  Why  was  no  name  sent  in  during  the 
administration  of  Polk,  Taylor,  Fillmore, 
Pierce,  Buchanan  or  Lincoln?  Why  was  no 
name  sent  in  during  Johnson’s  administration? 
Your  sword  is  too  broad,  my  friend;  it  is 
double-edged  and  cut  both  ways,  backward 
and  forward.  I  will  answer  why  no  name  was 
sent  in.  Every  man  on  this  floor  must  know 
that  all  civil  officers,  except  judicial  officers, 
whose  names  go  to  the  Senate  for  confirma¬ 
tion,  must  go  there  upon  a  commission  for  four 
years  unless  sooner  removed.  I  will  tell  you 
why.  In  1846,  two  years  before  the  first  four 
years  had  expired,  the  independent-treasury 
act  was  passed.  That  sixth  section  of  that  act 
designates  all  the  persons  who  shall  receive, 
deposit,  transfer  and  pay  the  moneys  of  the 
United  States,  and  if  that  section  stood  alone 
it  would  by  implication  repeal  the  section  I 
h ave  uuotedHmaLllaa^att^fcJai^A^^rtMlfr  ' ; 


4 


section  entire  from  the  act  approved  August 
6,1846: 

Sec.  6.  And  be  it  further  enacted ,  That  the 
Treasurer  of  the  United  States,  the. treasurer  of 
the  Mint  of  the  United  States,  the  treasurers, 
and  those  acting  as  such,  of  the  various  branch 
mints,  ail  collectors  of  the  customs,  all  surveyors 
of  the  customs  acting  also  as  collectors,  all  assist¬ 
ant  treasurers,  all  receivers  of  public  moneys  at 
the  several  land  offices,  all  postmasters,  and  all 
public  officers  of  whatsoever  character ,  be,  and 
they  are  hereby,  required  to  keep  safely,  without- 
loaning,  using,  depositing  in  banks,  or  exchang¬ 
ing  for  other  funds  than  as  allowed  by  this  act, 
8.11  the  public  money  collected  by  them  or  other¬ 
wise  at  any  time  placed  in  their*  possession  and 
custody,  till  the  same  is  ordered  by  the  proper 
Department  or  officer  of  the  Government  to  be 
transferred  or  paid  out;  and  when  such  orders  for 
transfer  or  payment  are  received,  faithfully  and 
promptly  to  make  the  same  as  directed,  and  to  do 
and  perform  all  other  duties  as  fiscal  agents  of 
the  Government  which  may  be  imposed  by  this  or 
any  other  acts  of  Congress ,  or  by  any  regulation  of 
the  Treasury  Department  madh  m  conformity  to' 
law;  arid  also  to  do  and  perform  all  acts  and  du¬ 
ties  required  by  taw  or  by  direction  of  any  of  the 
Executive  Departments  of  the  Government  as 
agents ,  for  paying  pensions  or  for  making  any 
other  disbursements  which  either  of  the  heads  of 
those  Departments  may  be  required '■  by  law  to  make 
and  which,  are  of  a  character  to  be  made  by  the 
depositaries  hereby  constituted ,  consistently  with 
the  other  official  duties  imposed  upon  them. 
(9  Statutes  at  Large,  page  60.) 

Ad  examination  of  the  section  shows  that 
the  old  machinery  of  depositaries  and  special 
agents  was  swept  away  altogether,  and,  by 
implication,  this  section  repealed  the  section 
which  the  committee  quoted  from  the  act  of 
1844.  But  we  are  not  left  to  implication.  The 
last  section  of  the  act  (section  24)  actually 
repeals  all  acts  and  parts  of  acts  inconsistent 
with  the  sub-treasury  act.  And  this  repeal 
seems  to  have  left  in  the  power  of  the  heads  of 
the  several  Departments  to  make  their  own 
special  fiscal  arrangements  after  they  have 
drawn  the  money  for  their  use,  and  therefore 
very  naturally  and  very  properly  the  President 
did  not  find  it  necessary  in  1848  to  send  the 
name  of  Baring  Brothers  to  the  Senate,  nor  in 
1852,  nor  in  1856,  nor  in  1858,  nor  at  any  sub¬ 
sequent  day.  It  was  understood  by  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  all  the  administrations  thal  the  sub- 
'  treasury  law  substantially  superseded  all  other 
laws  on  the  subject. 

Now,  in  1854,  Congress,  finding  that  the 
Secretaries  of  the  several  Departments  needed 
more  special  power  in  reference  to  the  dis¬ 
bursement  of  money,  a  section  was  put  into  an 
appropriation  bill  in  those  Democratic  days, 
which  gentlemen  will  find  as  the  fourteenth 
section  of  the  sundry  civil  bill  of  August  4, 
1854.  And  here  is  the  section: 


by  all  Administrations;  it  is  not  neceesary  to 
discuss  the  reason  of  that.  They  were  made 
the  agents  of  the  Government.  But  were  their 
names  sent  into  the  Senate?  Of  course  not; 
nobody  raised  the  question  of  practice,  because 
not  one  of  Secretary  Robeson’s  predecessors 
had  sent  any  name  in  for  nearly  one  third  of  & 
century.  And  the  power  of  the  Secretary  was 
further  increased  by  the  act  of  July  5,  1862, 
providing  that  “all  appropriations  for  specific, 
general  and  contingent  expenses  of  the  Navy 
Department  shall  be  under  the  control  and 
expended  by  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy.” 

What  now  happened  ?  When  we  came  to 
revise  the  statutes  of  the  United  States  in  1874, 
by  one  of  the  blunders  which  the  revisers  made 
in  so  great  a  work,  there  was  embraced  in  it 
the  old,  obsolete  law  of  1844.  And  when  that 
came  to  be  discovered,  and  there  was  a  change 
in  1876  in  the  fiscal  agency  of  the  Navy  De¬ 
partment,  and  Seligman  Brothers,  of  New 
York,  were  appointed,  for  the  first  time  in 
thirty-odd  years,  it  appeared  that  there  was  a 
requirement  in  the  Revised  Statutes  that  the 
name  should  be  sent  to  the  Senate  for  con¬ 
firmation.  And  accordingly,  in  obedience  to 
that  old,  obsolete  section  now  included  in  the 
Revised  Statutes,  the  name  of  Seligman 
Brothers  was  sent  into  the  Senate. 

And  I  will  say  here,  what  is  common  report 
throughout  the  country,  that  the  Committee 
on  the  Judiciary  of  the  Senate  that  had  charge 
of  that  nomination  though  t  there  was  no  neces¬ 
sity  of  their  ratifying  the  nomination.  It  was 
the  general  impression  that,  even  w’th  that  pro¬ 
vision  in  the  Revised  Statutes,  they  did  not 
need  to  ratify  the  nomination  of  Seligman 
Brothers.  But  finally,  out  of  abundant  cau¬ 
tion,  they  did  ratify  it. 

And  now  we  are  called  upon  to  raise  the 
question  of  -impeachment  of  Secretary  Robe¬ 
son  for  having  neglected  a  repealed  statute, 
which,  for  thirty  years,  every  one  of  his  prede¬ 
cessors  had  treated  as  repealed.  If  party  rage 
can  go  further  than  that;  if  malice  can  seek  a 
crazier  thing  to  lean  upon,  I  do  not  know  what 
it  is. 

The  doctrine  of  the  majority  of  the  commit¬ 
tee  is  one 

That  leans  its  idiot  back 

On  folly’s  topmost  twig. 

That  is  all  I  have  to-  say  on  that  point. 

Now,  a  word  or  two  on  a  single  other  point. 
It  is  charged  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
made  remittances  to  the  concern  of  Jay  Cooke, 
McCulloch  &  Co.  after  it  was  in  a  failing  con¬ 
dition.  Now,  it  is  clearly  shown  in  their  own 
testimony  that  the  remittance  was  made  weeks 
before  the  credit  ot  the  firm  had  suffered  any 
shock.  The  warrant  passed  out  of  the  Secre¬ 
tary’s^  hands  and  was  no  more  under  his  con¬ 
trol  than  under  yours  or  mine.  And  because 
some  of  the  drafts,  which  had  been  wander¬ 
ing  around  the  world,  were  not  presented  for 
payment  till  a  day  or  two  after  the  crash,  the 
committee  say  kfiat  therefore  the  Secretary 
made  remittances  after  the  credit  of  the  firm 
was  impaired.  I  have  only  time  to  say  that 
the  action  of  the  Secretary  was  such  as  every 
sensible  business  man  would  approve. 

I  want  to  say  one  word  in  conclusion,  and 
that  is  this:  That  good  old  sense  of  fair  play 
that  enters  into  the  hearts  and  minds  of  all 
brave,  manly  men  requires  this  House  to  do 
one  of  two  things:  If  you  believe  that  Secre¬ 
tary  Robeson  has  done  anything  deserving  im- 


Whenever  it  becomes  necessary  for  the  head  of 
any  Department  or  office  to  employ  special  agents 
other  than  officers  ot  the  Army  ami  Navy,  who 
may  be  charged  with  the  disbursement  of  public 
moneys,  such  agents*shall,  before  entering  upon 
duty,  give  bond  in  such  form  and  with  such  secur¬ 
ity  as  the  head  of  the  Department  or  office  em- 
ploying'them  may  approve. 

This  section  recognizes  the  power  of  the 
Secretary  to  employ  agents,  but  requires  him 
to  take  security  from  them.  Now,  that  act  of 
T854,  together  with  the  section  I  have  quoted 
from  the  sub-treasury  act,  was  accepted 
on  all  hands  as  dispensing  with  the  necessity 
of  sending  in  a  name  to  the  Senate  for  such 
foreign  fiscal  agent. 

Now,  in  1871  a  new  appointment  was  made; 
the  appointment  of  Jay'Cooke,  McCulloch  & 
Co.,  alter  consultations  which  are  usually  had 


peachment,  present  your  articles  and  vote  on 
them.  If  you  do  not  believe  that,  say  so  and 
drop  the  subject.  But  to  hang  up  over  his 
head  a  doubt  and  a  threat,  and  to  let  them 
hang  there  as  a  menace  during  the  heated 
political  controversy  of  the  pending  election  is 
unmanly  and  unjust.  Why,  sir,  you  might 
say  the  same  thing  of  George  Washington; 
you  could  pass  this  same  resolution  about  any 
public  servant  that  the  nation  ever  had.  We 
could  say  that,  being  in  doubt  whether  all  his 
acts  were  perfectly  legal,  we  will  turn  t*he 
question  over  to  a  committee  to  inquire,  with 
instructions  to  bring  in  articles  if  they  find  any 
act  impeachable.  Could  you  not  say  that 
about  any  man  you  ever  knew  who  ever  held 
any  public  office  in  this  nation?  Secretary 
Robeson  is  a  manly  man,  and  does  not  fear  to 
meet  the  full  responsibility  of  his  official  acts. 

Now  let  this  House  do  the  manly  thing; 
bring  in  your  articles  of  impeachment  and  vote 
on  them;  recommit  this  report  to  your  com¬ 
mittee,  and  let-, them  act  upon  it  and  bring  in 
articles  of  impeachment  if  they  can.  We  do 
not  desire  to  screen  anybody  who  has  done 
wrona:,  but  we  do  demand,  manly,  fair  play. 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Mr.  HALE.  I  rise,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  enter 
my  earnest  protest  against  this  partisan  at¬ 
tempt  to  break  down  an  able  and  honest  offi¬ 
cer  of  the  Government — to  protest  against  this 
attempt  to  utilize  the  last  days  of  a  session 
preceding  a  Presidential  election  by  raising  a 
new  rallying  cry  for  the  canvass  over  alleged 
maladministration  on  the  part  of  a  man  who 
seven  years  ag®  came  to  Washington  bringing 
the  highest  reputation  as  a  good  lawyer  and  an 
honest  man,  and  who  in  all  unprejudiced  minds 
has  sustained  that  reputation  from  that  day  to 
this;  who  found  a  shattered  and  decayed  and 
almost  useless  navy,  and  who  put  in  its  place 
the  best  by  far  that  the  country  has  ever  had; 
who  has  been  at  the  head  of  a  Department  in 
which  have  been  spent  tens  of  millions  of  dol¬ 
lars,  and  who  has  never,  directly  or  indirectly, 
taken  one  dollar  for  himself,  but  who  is  to-day 
a  poorer  man  than  when  seven  years  ago  he 
resigned  the  attorney  generalship  of  New  Jer¬ 
sey  and  came  to  Washington  to  be  Secretary  of 
the  Navy. 

Mr.  Speaker,  in  discussing  this  subject  I  have 
but  little  time  to  give  to  it,  not  half  that  I 
could  wish.  Of  the  hour  that  is  assigned  me  I 
shall  yield  large  portions  to  different  gentlemen 
who  have  from  time  to  time  taken  an  interest  in 
this  investigation,  and  who  have  to  some  extent 
explored  the  wide  waste  of  testimony  that  the 
committee  has  thrown  open  to  us.  Something 
of  this  I  have  done  myself.  I  have  not  read  all 
of  the  testimony,  and  I  propose  to  confine  my¬ 
self  to  certain  portions  of  the  investigation,  the 
testimony  bearing  upon  which  I  have  faithfully 
gone  through.  Human  life  is  too  short  to 
read  everything  that  the  committee  has  raked 
and  scraped  from  the  corners  of  the  earth. 

But  I  have  read  enough  to  know  this,  Mr. 
Speaker,  that  if  anywhere  this  committee  has 
found  any  ambitious  officer  in  the  navy  who  be¬ 
lieves  in  the  exaltation  of  his  Department  into 
a  realm  where  $1©  will  be  spent  where  one  is 
now  spent,  and  who  blames  the  Secretary  be¬ 
cause  he  has  not  scattered  money  with  more 
lavish  hand,  it  has  opened  its  doors  to  him.  I 
have  read  enough  to  see  that  if  there  has  been 
any  discharged  officer  or  employee  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  that  has  come  to  Washington  or  the 
various  places  where  the  committee  have  sat, 


trumpeting  his  tale  of  personal  wrongs,  the 
committee  Lave  reached  out  their  arms  and 
gladly  received  him.  I  have  read  enough  to 
know  that  if  there  has  been  any  baffled  con¬ 
tractor  who  has  not  succeeded  in  getting  his 
scheme  for  illicit  gain  through  the  Navy  De¬ 
partment,  and  is  now  disturbed  by  the  memory 
of  profits  that  he  never  should  have  had  and 
has  lost,  the  committee  has  found  him  and 
gladly  heard  him.  I  have  learned  that  if  there 
has  been  living  any  old  officer  of  the  navy  who 
held  important  place  before  the  rebellion,  like 
ex-Constructor  Porter,  who  had  been  at  Nor¬ 
folk,  who  refitted  the  Merrimac  and  made  her 
such  an  engine  of  destruction  to  our  navy  that 
in  the  little  space  of  an  hour  she  sunk  millions 
of  dollars  and  most  precious  lives — I  have 
learned  that  if  the  committee  found  any  such 
as  he,  they  opened  their  doors  to  him,  and 
gave  him  welcome,  and  made  him  sit  in  ail  the 
high  places  that  their  report  erects.  They 
listened  to  and  set  down  all  his  complaints, 
embittered  as  they  were  by  the  reflection  on  his 
part  qf  the  day  when,  under  the  Democratic 
party,  he  was  a  power  in  the  Navy  Department® 
I  have  learned  that  if  throughout  the  length  of 
the  Atlantic  coast  there  has  been  any  “dead 
beat”  who  has  been  kicked  from  the  doors  of 
the  Navy  Department,  the  committee  has  in¬ 
vited  him  and  has  taken  his  testimony,  and 
that  wherever,  as  in  the  case  of  the  man 
Wolfe,  he  has  been  contradicted  by  witness 
upon  witness  piling  up  contradiction,  Osso 
upon  Pelion,  the  report  of  the  committee  has 
been  made  upon  the  testimony  of  the  “dead¬ 
beat,”  and  that  nowhere  in  the  report  is  to  be 
found  the  countervailing  testimony  of  the 
honest  witnesses.  So  much  I  have  learned  by 
reading  this  report  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  give  time  to  it. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  claim  to  know  some¬ 
thing  of  the  American  Navy  and  of  its  manage¬ 
ment  and  condition  in  the  last  seven  years.  In 
the  Forty -first  Congress  I  had  the  honor  to 
serve  upon  the  Naval  Committee. 

In  the  two  succeeding  Congresses  I  served 
upon  the  Committee  on  Appropriations.  „I 
had  cnarge  of  all  naval  appropriations.  Such 
experience  ought  to  have  given  me  some  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  operations  of  the  Department,  some 
views  as  to  the  management  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  during  these  years. 

I  wish  to  give  about  all  my  time  to  the  con* 
sideration  of  the  real  condition  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Navy  as  it  now  is  in  contrast  with  what  it-, 
was  when  Mr.  Robeson  took  charge  of  it,  for 
the  heaviest  charge  in  the  complaint  of  the 
majority  of  the  committee  is  that  the  Secre¬ 
tary  has  wantonly  and  perhaps  corruptly 
wasted  the  immense  sums  of  money  that  have 
been  put  by  Congress  at  his  disposal,  and  that 
little  or  nothing  can  be  shown  for  it ;  that 
there  is  presented  in  these  seven  years  a  wil¬ 
derness  of  extravagance,  corruption  and  fraud. 
When  the  Secretary  took  the  Department  in 
1869  he  had  everything  to  learn.  He  set  him¬ 
self  to  learn  it.  He  inherited  almost  every¬ 
thing  but  a  good  Navy.  He  inherited  a  De¬ 
partment  used  to  extravagant  expenditures  of 
money  during  all  the  years  of  the  war.  He 
has  suffered  with  certain  naval  officers  be-, 
cause  his  term  of  office  has  been  at  a  time 
when  Congress  and  the  people  demanded  that 
there  should  be  lessening  of  expenditure,  a 
policy  never  acceptable  with  the  officers  of  the 
Navy.  He  inherited  a  service  the  spirit  of 
whose  officers  was  high  and  who  .believed  that 


6 


the  American  Navy  should  be  increased  until 
it  should  compare  with  the  navies  of  great  Eu- 
ropean  powers  where  a  pound  sterling  is  spent 
where  we  spend  a  dollar.  Above  all,  Mr. 
Speaker,  he  inherited  a  Navy  with  ships  which 
were  ships  only  in  name  ;  their  hulls  were  de¬ 
cayed,  their  engines  were  worthless.  With 
many  of  them  spee  1  was  a  myth.  With  others 
to  float  even  was  as  impossible  as  for  a  rich 
man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

There  were  at  that  time,  Mr.  Speaker,  when 
the  Secretary  took  charge  of  this  .Department, 
but  eighteen  ships  in  all  that  were  suitable  for 
sea-service.  This  fact  the  gentlemen  who 
father  this  remarkable  majority  report  either 
have  not  learned  or  have  ignored  entirely.  But 
such  is  the  fact.  Out  of  "all  the  expenditure 
of  the  war,  the  Navy  having  been  run  in  that 
period  like  a  race-horse  to  win  a  particular 
race  at  no  matter  what  the  future  sacrifice 
should  be,  Mr.  Robeson,  when  he  came  into 
office,  had  but  eighteen  ships  fit  for  sea-ser¬ 
vice.  We  had  never  run  so  low  since  Mr.  Jef¬ 
ferson’s  mania  for  little  gun-boats  and  a  dis¬ 
mantled  Navy.  Now  to-day  there  are  eighty 
ships,  including  iron-clads  in  good  condition 
and  fit  for  service. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  of  these  eighty  ships, 
forty-seven  have  been  extensively  repaired  and 
rebuilt  in  the  last  five  years.  They  have  been 
built  and  repaired  out  of  appropriations  given 
by  Congress  to  the  Secretary.  There  is  one 
thing  which  I  have  failed  to  see  credit  given 
for  in  this  report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
in  which  he  stands  alone,  and  that  is,  that  in 
all  these  years,  whatever  the  appropriations  of 
Congress  have  been,  he  has  confined  himself 
rigidly  to  them .  There  have  been  no  deficiency 
bills,  Mr.  Speaker,  in  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy’s 
Department,  and  he  has  brought  up  this  little 
dwindled  navy  of  eighteen  vessels,  out  of  the 
appropriations  Congress  has  given  him,  to  a 
navy  of  eighty  good  vessels,  fit  for  sea  and  for 
defense. 

And  for  this  the  gentlemen  on  the  majority 
of  the  committee  would  impeach  him  for  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanors. 

What  would  they  have  done,  I  wonder,  if 
the  Secretary  had  supinely  allowed  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Navy  to  go  to  destruction  and  had  really 
nothing  to  show  for  his  money  ? 

One  of  the  charges  made  is  as  to  the  rebuild¬ 
ing  of  vessels  out  of  the  appropriations  for 
construction  and  repair.  Yes,  the  Secretary 
has  done  it.  He  does  not  deny  it.  He  is  proud 
of  it;  and,  as  an  advocate  and  friend  of  the 
American  Navy,  I  am  proud  of  it.  He  has 
built  out  of  the  appropriation  for  construction 
and  repair  ten  vessels  which  are  to-day  as  good 
as  new. 

But,  while  the  committee  have  found  that 
fact,  they  have  not  found  the  further  fact  that 
the  Secretary  has  followed  the  example  of 
every  administration  for  thirty  years.  Do 
gentlemen  know  that  there  were  built  in  this 
same  way  the  United  States  in  1850,  the  Ful¬ 
ton  in  1835,  the  Engineer  in  1835,  the  Prince¬ 
ton  in  1851,  the  Constitution  in  1852,  the  Con¬ 
stellation  in  1853,  the  Congress  in  1840,  the 
Macedonian  in  1852  and  the  Franklin  in  1854; 
built  from  keel  inclusive  upward,  only  retain¬ 
ing  the  old  name,  just  as  Secretary  Robeson 
built  the  Marion,  the  Yandalia,  the  Swatara, 
the  Galena,  the  Nipsic,  and  has  almost  finished 
the  Miantonomoh,  the  Amphitrite,  the  Monad- 
nock,  the  Terror  and  the  Puritan? 

He  followed  in  the  beaten  track  of  his  pre¬ 


decessors.  Nay,  has  this  committee  ever 
found  out  that  there  were  built  outright  in 
1843,  without  authority  of  Congress,  from  the 
general  appropriations,  the  following  new  ves¬ 
sels,  new  in  name  as  well  as  in  keel  and  hull: 
the  Portsmouth,  the  Germantown,  the  Albany, 
the  Plymouth,  the  Saint  Mary’s,  and  the 
Jamestown?  These  were  added  to  the  lists  of 
the  Navy  by  the  administration  in  the  year 
1843.  And  because  the  Secretary  has  gone 
half  as  far  as  previous  Democratic  administra¬ 
tions,  the  majority  of  this  committee  want  to 
impeach  him. 

Let  me  call  the  attention  of  gentlemen  to 
some  of  the  results  of  this  good  conduct  on 
the  part  of  the  Secretary  in  building  up  a  good 
Navy,  which  I  say  to-day,  and  I  say  it  on  the 
responsibility  of  knowledge,  is  a  better  Navy 
than  the  Republic  has  ever  had.  The  gentle¬ 
man  from  Texas  [Mr.  Mills]  has  referred  to 
the  Virginius  excitement.  Has  he  learned 
that  because  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  then 
summoned  to  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  a  fleet  so 
efficient  Spain  did  not  dare  herself  to  enter 
into  the  conflict,  war  was  averted?  Does  he 
know  that  at  that  time  Spain  herself  had  an 
armament  there  that  was  larger  than  any 
which  Howe  or  St.  Vincent  ever  commanded; 
larger  than  the  fleet  with  which  Nelson  won 
his  coronet  at  the  Nile  or  with  which  he  broke 
the  power  of  France  and  Spain  at  Trafalgar; 
and  that,  immense  as  that  armament  was,  as 
frowning  and  portentous  as  was  the  appear¬ 
ance  in  the  sky  at  that  time,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  whom  you  now  want  to  impeach, 
sent  into  the  very  teeth  of  the  guns  of  the 
Spanish  vessels  a  force  so  efficient  that  we 
were  protected  and  that  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  and  thousands  of  valuable  lives 
were  saved?  Why,  sir,  we  owed  more  at  that 
time  to  the  course  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  that  war  was  averted  than  to  any  and 
everybody  else,  as  good  as  the  diplomacy  of 
the  time  was. 

The  gentlemen  of  the  majority,  I  see,  in 
their  report  contrast  this  Navy  unfavorably 
with  the  Navy  at  the  close  of  Mr.  Buchanan’s 
administration,  and  they  contrast  the  expend¬ 
itures.  Why,  sir,  the  administration  of  Mr. 
Buchanan  in  its  four  years  had  annual  appro¬ 
priations  for  the  Navy  of  .from  eleven  to  four¬ 
teen  milli'-ns  of  dollars,  appropriations  that 
would  buy  more  of  material  and  labor  than 
the  corresponding  appropriations  in  any  of  the 
years  that  Secretary  Robeson  has  been  the 
head  of  the  Department.  And  yet,  sir,  when 
the  war  broke  out  the  Navy  was  not  in  a  con¬ 
dition  to  fire  a  gun  in  defense  of  the  flag. 

Let  me  call  the  attention  of  those  three  gen¬ 
tlemen,  from  Tennessee  and  Texas  and  Ala¬ 
bama,  who  have  been  foremost  in  this  matter 
in  arraigning  the  Secretary,  to  the  possible  re¬ 
sults  had  Mr.  Robeson’s  navy  under  his  man¬ 
agement  been  on  the  seas  in  1861.  Had  his 
fourteen  iron-clads  been  ready  for  service  then 
as  they  are  now,  we  would  have  had  one  sta¬ 
tioned  at  Memphis,  and  there  would  not  have 
been  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Tennessee  that 
you  saw  there  at  that  time.  We  would  have 
had  one  in  Galveston,  and  Texas  would  not 
have  been  so  rampant  as  you,  sir,  [looking  at 
Mr.  Mills,]  helped  to  make  it  that  year.  "  We 
would  have  ha  1  one  at  Mobile,  and  Alabama 
wouldn’t  have  been  so  eager  to  go  into  secession. 
We  would  have  had  oneor  two  at  Norfolk,  and 
others  at  Charleston  and  at  Savannah  and  at 
j  Wilmington  and  at  Baltimore,  and  the  rebel- 


lion  would  have  been  throttled  and  these  gen¬ 
tlemen  that  now  want  to  impeach  a  Cabinet 
officer  because  he  has  made  a  good  navy  for 
the  Republic  would  perhaps  have  never  gained 
the  reputation  in  the  field  that  has  sent  them 
onto  this  floor.  Or,  if  I  may  be  more  charita¬ 
ble,  in  the  peaceful  times  that  would  have  en¬ 
sued,  these  gentlemen  from  Alabama  and 
Texas  and  Tennessee  would  have  decorated 
this  Chamber  with  their  presence  earlier  than 
they  now  have. 

Other  results  would  have  followed  if  we  had 
had  a  Secretary  like  the  present  one  in  the 
years  preceding  the  war.  We  would  not  have 
had  so  heavy  a  debt  as  we  have  now.  There 
would  not  have  been  so  many  pensions.  There 
would  not  have  been  such  a  war  debt,  and 
such  a  debt  incidentally  from  the  war.  And 
my  Democratic  friends  would  not  have  had  so 
large  a  margin  to  figure  from  in  making  their 
redactions. 

No,  sir.  The  fact  is  that  upon  this  Subject 
the  record  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  is  re¬ 
splendent  with  his  achievements  in  building  up 
this  branch  of  the  service.  And  the  gentlemen 
of  the  majority  of  the  committee  have  gone 
out  delving  in  the  highways  and  the  byways, 
and  have  found  a  canteen  man  at  Brooklyn 
that  took  interest  in  the  navy,  and  they  have 
found  that  a  board  was  put  into  the  Secre¬ 
tary’s  dumb-waiter,  and  that  a  baptismal  font 
and  a  sideboard  were  made,  all  of  which  the 
Secretary  paid  for  at  high  prices  out  of  his 
own  money,  and  henceforth  got  bis  furniture 
at  cheaper  prices;  they  have  hunted  up  old 
■constructor  John  Porter,  who  has  filled  their 
pages  with  his  bitter  complaints  and  talk  about 
the  enormities  of  the  present  administration  in 
the  navy  yards,  and  they  complain  that  men 
at  the  navy  yards  vote  the  Republican  ticket 
on  compulsion. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  subject  I  ask  that 
the  following  letter  be  read  by  the  Clerk. 

The  Clerk  lead  as  lollows: 

Commandant’s  Office,  Navy  Yard,  ) 
Mare  Island,  September  23,  1858.  £ 

Sir:  Mr.  Turner,  civil  engineer,  objects  to  a 
requisition  for  a  sawyer  to  superintend  the  saw¬ 
mill  without  its  going  through  his  office,  and  fur¬ 
ther  states  that  the  saw-mill  is  under  the  imme¬ 
diate  charge  of  the  master  joiner. 

I  have  also  heard  that  the  man  selected  by  you 
is  a  black  Republican;  if  so,  he  cannot  be  admit¬ 
ted  on  the  rolls  of  this  yard  while  I  command  it. 

Respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

R.  13.  CUNNINGHAM,  Commandant. 

I.  Hanscom,  Esq.,  Naval  Constructor ,  Navy 

Yard ,  Mare  Island ,  California. 

Mr.  HALE.  That  is  better, Mr.  Speaker, than 
any  argument  of  mine.  It  shows  that  while 
abuses  exist  in  this  direction,  they  have  come 
down  from  former  years. 

Mr.  Speaker,  in  what  I  have  said  I  have  dealt 
mainly  with  the  condition  of  the  American 
navy,  because  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
question.  I  say  here,  and  I  can  maintain  it,  that 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  built  out  of  the 
ordinary  appropriations  of  the  Republic  the  best 
navy  that  the  country  has  ever  had,  and  for 
this  the  gentlemen  of  the  majority  of  this  re¬ 
port  would  forsooth  impeach  him! 

Truly,  republics  are  ungrateful,  and  never 
more  so  when  the  question  whether  praise  or 
blame  shall  be  meted  out  rests  with  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  the  present  Committee  on  Naval  Af¬ 
fairs  . 

I  now  yield  fifteen  minutes  to  my  colleague, 
{Mr.  Frye.] 

Mr.  FRYE.  I  do  not  know  that  I  need  any 


excuse  for  addressing  this  House  for  fifteen 
minutes,  and  yet  as  I  have  no  connection  with 
the  Naval  Committee  perhaps  it  is  just  for  me  to 
say  that, as  a  member  of  this  House,  as  a  lawyer, 
as  a  gentleman  careful  and  sensitive  as  to  the 
honor  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  a  gentle¬ 
man  whom  I  have  known  long,  known  well, 
and  whom  before  this  investigation  commenced 
I  believed  to  be  a  man  of  as  strict  integrity,  of 
as  noble  purposes,  of  as  generous  impulses  as 
any  man  within  the  circle  of  my  acquaintance, 
I  have  studiously  and  critically  examined  this 
evidence,  and  I  beg  to  say  to  the  House  from 
the  examination  I  have  made  of  the  testimony, 
from  the  discussion  which  has  taken  place  on 
the  floor  of  this  House,  I  state  on  my  honor  as 
a  member  that  my  opinion  has  not  been  changed 
as  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  one  jot  or  one 
tittle.  Sir,  there  are  periods  in  the  history  of 
the  world  when  darkness  usurps  the  place  of 
light,  as  the  spots  now  and  then  appear  upon 
the  face  of  the  moon;  when  justice  is  dethroned 
and  tyranny  is  enthroned;  when  the  possession 
ot  virtue,  of  purity,  and  integrity  only  lead  to 
an  attack  and  persecution  upon  the  possessor; 
when  suspicion  secures  conviction,  while  evi¬ 
dence  fails;  when  father  is  against  son  and 
brother  against  brother;  and  Jhe  members  of 
one’s  own  household  are  spies  upon  him  and 
his  family;  times  when  hell  seems  to  reign  and 
heaven  to  serve.  History  repeats  itself,  and  if 
ever  one  of  those  dark  periods  of  time  was  re¬ 
peated  in  the  history  of  the  American  Congress 
it  has  been  during  this  present  session. 

Why,  sir,  it  has  been  bitter,  it  has  been  full 
of  suspicion,  it  has  been  full  of  crimination 
and  recrimination ;  all  social  intercourse  has 
been  embittered  by  it,  and  why  ?  Because  a 
great  party  of  the  country,  hungry  and  thirsty 
by  an  abstinence  of  a  score  of  years,  thought 
that  it  saw  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt  and  was 
bound  to  taste  thereof.  Ah  !  gentlemen,  you 
have  gone  too  far  ;  you  may  get  a  view  of  the 
promised  land,  but  you  cut  off  your  prospect 
of  ever  reaching  it  by  too  fond  a  desire  for  an 
indulgence  in  flesh-pots.  Sir,  why  is  it  that 
scores  of  committees  of  this  House  for  the  last 
seven  months,  at  a  cost  to  the  people  of  $3,000 
a  day,  clothed  with  the  power  of  sending  for 
persons  and  papers,  armed  with  subpoenas,  sit¬ 
ting  with  closed  doors,  have  sent  these  sub- 
pcenas  into  the  slime  and  the  alleys  and  the 
lanes  of  great  cities ;  have  brought  in  the 
drunkards,  the  insane  men,  the  discharged 
employees,  and  disgraced  officials,  and  everj7- 
thing  that  was  debased  and  wicked,  and,  sit¬ 
ting  with  closed  doors,  have  taken  from  their 
lips  that  filth  they  were  willing  and  delighted 
to  dispense,  and  from  time  to  time  have  scat¬ 
tered  it  through  a  partisan  press  ?  Only  be¬ 
cause  the  necessities  of  the  party  seem  to  re¬ 
quire  it. 

Why  is  it  that  the  Naval  Committee  listen 
to  the  story  of  Porter,  who  as  naval  con¬ 
structor  at  Norfolk  fitted  out  the  Merrimae, 
violated  his  oath,  destroyed  vessels  sailing 
under  the  American  flag,  and  finds  false  meas¬ 
urements  of  timber  in  that  yard,  though  a 
dozen  loyal  men  flatly  contradict  him?  The 
necessities  of  the  party  demand  it. 

Why  is  it  that  the  testimony  of  the  drunken 
Wolfe,  the  discharged  employee,  almost  in 
delirium  when  he  testified,  is  believed  against 
the  contradicting  statements  of  five  respecta¬ 
ble  and  credible  witnesses?  The  necessities  of 
the  party  demand  it. 

Why  is  it  that  the  Committee  on  the  Real 


8 


Estate  Pool  Ring  was  empowered  try  this  House 
to  investigate  every  man  and  everything  under 
the  wide  heavens,  and  in  pursuance  of  that 
purpose  dared  to  violate  the  sanctity  of  private 
business  letters  and  telegrams,  to  send  to  the 
vats  of  paper-makers  and  bring  such  telegrams 
here  by  the  half  ton  and  spend  months  sorting 
over  this  private  correspondence  of  private 
gentlemen,  disgracing  themselves  and  outrag¬ 
ing  the  American  Congress?  Ah!  because  the 
necessities  of  the  party  seemed  to  require  it. 

Why  is  it  that  a  dignified  committee  like 
that  on  the  judiciary  is  parceled  out  into 
squads  of  detectives,  and,  notwithstanding 
their  dignity,  compelled  to  prowl  around 
among  discharged  employees  of  the  Treasury 
Department,  among  disgraced  officials,  among 
whisky-ring-eonvicts,  seeking  to  prove  that  the 
great  executive  head  of  the  United  States,  too, 
has  been  dabbling  in  whisky  frauds?  Why 
would  that  committee  dare  to  drag  in  the  mire 
the  great  name  of  this  great  Republic  before 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  world?  There  is  but 
one  answer:  The  necessities  of  the  party 
seemed  to  require  it. 

Why,  when  a  member  of  this  House  was 
charged  with  selling  a  cadetship  for  $3,000, 
did  the  sub-committee  of  the  Judiciary  spend 
months  upon  the  case;  and  then  when  they 
found  that  there  was  not  a  scintilla  of  evidence 
against  their  colleague  and  their  peer  on  the 
floor  of  this  House,  and  were  compelled  to  re¬ 
port  his  exculpation,  why,  I  say,  did  they  in 
six  of  the  pages  of  that  exculpation  report 
seek  to  cover  him  with  the  infamy  of  gross 
and  wicked  suspicions;  that  report  never 
signed  or  voted  for  by  but  four  members  of  the 
committee,  while  the  minority  report  which  I 
have  in  my  desk,  and  wffiich  fully  and  com¬ 
pletely  exculpates  the  gentleman  from  Ala¬ 
bama,  [Mr.  Hays,]  is  signed  by  five  members 
of  that  committee? 

Why  did  the  same  committee  demand  the 
private  correspondence  of  a  distinguished  mem¬ 
ber  of  this  House,  in  no  manner  relating  to  the 
case  in  hand;  and  when  it  was  refused,  why 
did  the  partisan  press  fill  the  public  mind  with 
gross  and  wicked  suspicion,  until  in  self-de¬ 
fense  that  gentleman  was  compelled  to  read 
the  letters  to  forty  millions  of  people  ?  The 
necessities  of  a  great  party  demanded  it. 

And  so  I  might  go  on  by  the  hour,  but  I  have 
only  fifteen  minutes.  I  now  put  the  same 
question  to  the  House  and  to  the  country  as  to 
this  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs.  Why  did 
you  sit  with  closed  doors  for  months,  taking 
four  thousand  printed  pages  of  testimony? 
Why  did  you  close  the  mouths  of  the  Republi¬ 
can  members  of  that  committee,  so  that  they 
could  not  make  any  inquiry  to  obtain  infor¬ 
mation  in  relation  to  this  examination?  And 
when  you  had  got  through  your  taking  of  tes¬ 
timony,  why  did  you  make  this  report,  for 
which  there  is  no  foundation  in  the  evidence 
from  its  beginning  down  to  its  very  end? 

Why  did  the  gentleman  from  Alabama  [Mr. 
Lewis]  yesterday  and  why  did  the  gentleman 
from  Texas  [Mr.  Mills]  to-day  assert  what 
they  did  assert  in  regard  to  the  Cattell  per¬ 
formance,  or  the  “Cattellism,”  as  they  termed 
it?  Why  did  the  gentleman  from  Texas  assert 
that  E.  G.  Cattell’ testified  that  he  expended 
$13,000  for  Secretary  Robeson  upon  a  palace 
at  Long  Branch,  when  the  gentleman_  from 
Texas  knew  as  well  as  I  know,  because  1  have 
read  the  testimony,  that  E.G.  Cattell  was  act¬ 
ing  as  the  agent  of  A.  J.  Cattell,  an  ex-Sena¬ 


tor  of  the  United  States,  and  then  absent,  by 
virtue  of  an  agreement  with  him?  And  he 
knew  further  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
had  mortgaged  or  deeded  property  in  the  city 
of  Washington  of  three  times  the  value  of  the 
whole  amount  as  security  to  A.  G.  Cattell  & 
Co.  for  the  advances  which  had  been  made. 
Why  was  the  gentleman  silent  as  to  that?  Ah! 
the  necessities  of  the  party  demanded  it. 

Why  did  the  gentleman  from  Texas  [Mr. 
MillsI  read  the  income  returns  of  the  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Navy  from  1866  to  1869,  when  he 
knew  as  well  as  I  know  it,  but  was  silent  about 
it,  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  1866  paid 
an  income  tax  on  $76,000,  a  tax  of  over  $7,000, 
and  which  the  gentleman  from  Texas  knew 
would  be  allowed  the  next  year  to  the  payer 
of  the  tax,  and  deducted  from  the  tax  of  that 
year?  Why  did  he  make  these  statements 
when  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  himself  testi¬ 
fied,  uncontradicted,  that  he  had  been  com¬ 
pelled  to  sell  $30,000  of  United  States  bonds  to 
keep  his  position  here  in  the  city  of  Washing¬ 
ton,  and  that  all  he  was  worth  to-day  more 
than  he  was  worth  the  day  he  became  Secre¬ 
tary  of  the  Navy  came  from  rise  in  property? 
Why  did  he  not  say,  as  is  proven  iu  the  case, 
that  the  account  books  of  A.  G.  Cattell  <fe  Co. 
contained  every  item  charged  against  Mr. 
Robeson? 

Now  what  is  it  about  the  Cattells.  A.  G. 
Cattell,  ex-United  States  Senator,  was  for 
twenty  years  the  friend  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  was  the 
attorney  and  counsel  for  A.  G.  Cattell  &  Co. 
for  ten  years  before  he  became  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy;  hence  all  these  business  transac¬ 
tions  between  them.  Now  I  submit  to  this 
House — for  I  have  not  time  to  examine  the 
evidence,  and  I  ask  them  to  examine  this  testi¬ 
mony  for  themselves — that  they  cannot  find 
one  scintilla  of  evidence  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  it  which  connects  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  in  the  remotest  degree  either  with 
selling  his  influence  to  contractors,  or  with  re¬ 
ceiving  one  dollar  of  benefit  from  them. 

On  the  contrary,  it  will  be  found  that  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  himself  testified  before 
the  committee  that  he  never  received  one  dol¬ 
lar  from  any  contractor  or  for  any  contract ; 
that  when  he  beard  by  public  rumor  that  E, 
G.  Cattell  was  endeavoring  to  sell  his  influence 
with  the  Department,  he,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  immediately  went  to  Philadelphia  and 
informed  the  party  in  charge  there  that  no 
such  thing  would  be  allowed  for  a  moment, 
E.G.  Cattell  testified  that  the  Secretary  was 
kept  in  profound  ignorance  of  the  facts,  as  was 
his  brother,  A.  G.  Cattell,  so  far  as  it  could  Le 
done. 

Roach  and  other  contractors,  two  in  nuin 
ber,  testified  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
told  them  that  under  no  circumstances  should 
they  pay  a  dollar  or  a  cent  to  E.  G.  Cattell  or 
any  other  man  in  order  to  procure  contracts  ; 
that  if  Jie  knew  of  it  the  contracts  would  not 
be  granted.  Where  is  the  evidence  that  the 
Secretary  was  knowing  to  this  commission 
business'?  There  is  not  one  word  in  the  whole 
four  thousand  pages  of  testimony. 

Then,  again,  the  Secretary  himself  testifies 
distinctly  and  squarely  that  he  never  extended 
favor  to  E.  G.  Cattell  or  to  any  other  con¬ 
tractor  or  to  any  other  purchaser  of  supplies 
whatsoever;  and  I  have  here  a 


9 


LIST  OF  TWENTY-THREE  LEADING  OFFICERS 

of  the  navy  whom  he  called  as  witnesses,  all  of 
them  having  served  from  twenty-five  to  forty- 
five  years,  and  every  one  of  them  having  been 
in  positions  as  commissaries,  quartermasters, 
&c.,  where  they  had  the  right  legally  to  pur¬ 
chase  supplies  for  periods  covering  the  wThole 
time  that  Mr.  Robeson  has  been  Secretary  of 
the  N  avy,  and  every  one  of  them  to  a  man  tes¬ 
tifies  that  there  never  was  any  request  for 
favor  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy; 
that  there  never  was  any  favor  extended  by 
them;  that  he  never,  directly  or  indirectly, 
asked  them  to  extend  favor  to  any  living  con- 
tractor  or  furnishing  man.  Why  does  the 
gentleman  from  Texas,  [Mr.  Mills,]  why  do 
the  majority  of  the  Naval  Committee  disregard 
all  this  testimony  and  in  their  report  never 
mention  it  all,  but  go  entirely  upon  suspicions 
of  their  own  ?  The  necessities  of  the  party  de¬ 
mand  it. 

“0,”  it  is  said,  “the  Secretary  must  have 
got  money  improperly,  because  this  Cattell 
sold  his  influence .”  Gentlemen,  do  you  not 
know  that  your  influence  and  your  votes  are 
sold  every  day  that  you  sit  on  the  floor  of  this 
House  ?  D©  you  not  know  that  brokers  and 
lobbyists  in  Washington  and  New  York  are 
selling  the  votes  of  the  very  best  of  you  every 
day  that  you  live  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  they 
sold  the  vote  of  Hon.  William  Pitt  Fessenden 
for  a  thousand  dollars — a  man  who  could  not 
be  corrupted  by  all  the  money  in  the  world  ; 
whose  evei-enduring  monument  is  that  he 
dared  to  stand  up  in  the  impeachme  at  trial  of 
Andrew  Johnson  and  vote  “not  guilty”  against 
his  whole  party?  And  yet,  do  you  dare  assume 
that  he  was  corrupt  ?  Do  you  assume  that 
Congress  is  corrupt  ?  Do  you  assume  that  the 
chairman  of  this  committee,  the  gentleman 
from  Tennessee,  is  corrupt  because  some  mis¬ 
erable  scoundrel  sells  influence  with  him  that 
he  never  had,  and  his  vote  which  he  could 
never  control?  E.  G.  Cattell  did  this,  and 
nothing  more  than  this;  yet  the  majority  of 
the  Naval  Committee  find  that  Mr.  Robeson  is 
corrupt  because — 

[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Mr.  HALE.  I  now  yield  ten  minutes  to  the 
gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  Kelley.] 

Mr.  KELLEY.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  grieve  as 
sincerely  as  any  man  in  this  House  over  the 
character  of  this  report.  It  is  a  sad  disap¬ 
pointment  to  me.  There  are  abuses,  tradi¬ 
tional  abuses,  in  many  departments  of  the  Gov¬ 
ernment;  and  I  hoped  that  we  should  get  a 
calm,  philosophic  arraignment  of  these  and 
proposed  amendments  in  the  law  which  would 
remedy  and  avert  them.  But  this  report  is  so 
superficial  and  bitterty  partisan  that  it  must 
be  a  disappointment  to  the  whole  country.  It 
brings  forward  no  amendments  to  the  law;  it 
proposes  to  remedy  no  evil;  but  in  lieu  of  such 
practical  suggestions  it  proposes  to  refer  to  an¬ 
other  committee  of  the  House  a  mass  of  four’ 
thousand  pages  of  loose  and  incoherent  testi¬ 
mony,  much  of  it  from  disreputable  sources, 
in  order  that  that  committee  may  discover 
whether  George  M.  Robeson,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  has  been  guilty  of  any  crime  or  misde¬ 
meanor.  Stultifying  itself,  the  Naval  Com¬ 
mittee  in  this  proposition  declares  that  in  seven 
months  it  has  not  been  able  to  discover  such  a 
fact,  and  asks  that  the  Judiciary  Committee 
may  sit  at  l^ast  till  after  the  November  elec¬ 
tion  upon  the  question  aud  ascertain  whether 


it  can  discover  any  in  this  mass  of  worse  than 
hearsay  evidence. 

I  have  known  Mr.  Robeson,  in  the  little  city 
in  which  he  grew  to  manhood  and  has  prac¬ 
ticed  law,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  I  aver  that  in  an  inquisition  made  in  open 
daylight,  where  the  safeguards  of  character 
established  by  tradition,  law  or  decency  should 
be  respected,  the  world  may  investigate  him, 
and  his  integrity  will  come  out  without  taint  or 
tarnish.  What,  with  strumpets  and  thieves 
and  their  consorts  examined  in  the  darkness, 
sworn  not  to  reveal  what  they  had  testified  to, 
with  even  the  minority  of  the  committee  bound 
to  the  secresy  of  the  Spanish  inquisition,  what 
taint  you  may  have  put  upon  the  name  of  an 
honorable  man,  I  know  not;  but  when  the 
American  people  know  your  methods  and  look 
at  your  flimsy  partisan  results,  they  will  discard 
your  report  as  I  do,  as  a  mere  electioneering 
document  made  at  the  expense  of  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  our  country  and  institutions. 

Mr.  HARRIS, of  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Speaker, 
in  closing  this  debate  on  behalf  of  the  minority 
of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  I  shall  en¬ 
deavor  to  confine  myself  to  those  subjects 
which  the  majority  bring  to  our  attention  as 
the  result  and  conclusions  of  their  investigation. 

I  have  always  protested  that  the  purpose 
and  the  apparent  attemnt  of  our  committee 
was  to  hunt  up  if  possible  some  ground  upon 
which  to  make  a  charge  against  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy.  I  have  felt  so,  Mr.  Speaker.  I 
have  believed  so.  And  now,  at  last  the  result 
of  all  which  comes  before  this  House  of  Rep¬ 
resentatives,  the  result  of  all  our  investiga¬ 
tions,  which  this  House  is  called  to  pass  upon, 
is  this:  Will  this  House  send  to  another  com¬ 
mittee  of  this  bod5r  this  vast  accumulation  of 
trash  called  testimony,  and  the  conundrums 
whfteh  the  committee  seem  to  raise  upon  ques¬ 
tions  of  law?  Shall  we  send  all  this  to  another 
great  committee  of  this  House  to  find  out 
whether  possibly  there  may  not  be  discovered 
from  all  this  testimony  a  legal  or  technical 
ground  upon  which  to  charge  the  Secretary 
with  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  and  to 
render  it  proper  that  articles  of  impeachment 
should  be  brought  in  here  ? 

Mr.  Speaker,  when  the  committee  itself,  or¬ 
ganized  as  it  has  been,  controlled  as  it  has 
been,  wielded  as  it  has  been  in  the  direction  of 
impeachment,  makes  the  report  it  does,  it  is  a 
humiliating  confession. 

But,  sir,  what  is  the  use  of  talking  about  a 
fair  investigation  when  the  man  and  the  men 
most  affected  can  only  know  what  transpired 
in  the  tribunal  which  was  trying  them  after 
the  press  of  the  country  had  put  it  before  them? 
Remember,  Mr.  Speaker,  the  investigation  at 
Norfolk,  the  investigation  at  the  Washington 
navy  yard,  the  investigations  at  the  Philadel¬ 
phia  navy  yard,  at  New  York,  at  Boston  and  at 
Kittery  were  ail  completed  and  the  summer 
had  come  upon  us  before  the  Secretary  was 
allowed  ro  put  his  foot  in  the  committee-room. 
It  was  not,  sir,  until  the  first  day  of  June  that 
he  came  there.  And  then,  as  we  have  said  in 
our  report,  he  demanded  that  as  a  right  which 
the  committee  had  denied  him  for  so  long. 
When,  sir,  any  man  holding  the  relation  which 
he  holds  to  the  Government  is  to  be  put  on 
trial  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors,  it 
would  seem  to  be  a  part  of  his  right  at  least  to 
meet  face  to  face  and  to  put  the  test  of  cross- 
examination  to  those  witnesses  who  were 
brought  to  impeach  his  honor  and  integrity. 


10 


And  yet,  sir,  the  report  of  this  committee 
stands  upon  the  testimony  of  a  class  of 
witnesses  who  were  never  cross-examined; 
their  private  history  unknown;  their  motives 
were  unknown.  I  thiDk  the  House  will  see 
that  this  is  an  imposition,  a  slander  upon  jus¬ 
tice,  to  say  that  such  an  investigation  can  be 
fair.  It  is  utterly  impossible,  however  much 
the  parties  conducting  it  intended  to  make  it 
so,  that  it  should  have  teen  fair  or  impartial. 

But  my  time  is  rapidly  wasting  and  I  want 
to  call  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  ques¬ 
tion  before  it  directly.  They  say  that  the  Sec¬ 
retary  has  willingly  and  corruptly  violated 
certain  laws  and  that  for  the  violation  of  those 
laws  he  ought  to  be  impeached.  Now,  Mr. 
Speaker,  a  great  officer  like  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  must  necessarily  be  allowed  to  con¬ 
strue  the  law  where  it  has  not  already  been 
construed  for  him.  He  who  undertakes  to 
discharge  the  great  trust  confided  to  him  must 
himself  construe  the  law.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  question  as  to  what  the  law 
is,  he  may  go  to  precedents  and  to  history  for 
a  guide;  but  if  he  makes  an  honest  attempt  to 
execute  the  law  as  he  understands  it,  he  can¬ 
not  be  impeached,  thank  Heaven,  in  this  coun¬ 
try  at  least,  even  if  he  errs  in  his  conclusions. 
Were  it  otherwise,  every  judge  upon  the  bench 
might  be  Impeached  for  some  wrong  interpre¬ 
tation  of  the  law;  and  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  has  the  right  to  ascertain  from  the  stat¬ 
ute  what  the  law  is  and  what  are  his  duties 
under  the  law;  and,  if  he  honestly  endeavors 
to  execute  the  laws  as  he  understands  them,  he 
cannot  be  impeached. 

Here  is  the  law  which  he  is  charged  with 
violating: 

All  claims  and  demands  whatever  by  the 
United  States  or  against  them,  and  all  accounts 
whatever  in  which  the  United  States  are  con¬ 
cerned,  either  as  debtors  or  as  creditors,  shall  be 
settled  and  adjusted  in  the  Department  of  the 
Treasury. 

It  is  said  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
violated  the  law  in  that  he  paid  a  certain  claim 
known  as  the  Hungerford  claim. 

Mr.  Speaker,  the  Hungerford  claim  was  ad¬ 
justed  and  settled  in  the  Department  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  How  could  the 
money  ever  be  paid  out  except  that  it  was  ad¬ 
justed  there?  There  is  an  absolute  and  com¬ 
plete  compliance  with  the  law,  and  if  the  Sec¬ 
retary  of  the  Navy  unlawfully  passed  the 
claim,  it  was  passed  by  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury;  it  was  settled  or  it  would  not  have 
been  paid. 

But  what  of  the  Hungerford  claim?  Mr. 
Hungerford  owned  a  large  establishment  on 
the  Mississippi  river  during  the  war,  which 
was  taken  from  him  by  the  forces  of  the  United 
States.  The  value  of  the  property  was  said  to 
amount  to  .$230,000 .  A  portion  of  the  mate¬ 
rials  from  the  establishment  was  transferred  by 
the  Naval  Department  to  Mound  City  for  the 
establishment  ot  a  naval  rendezvous. 

Mr.  Hungerford  never  received  a  dollar  for 
that  property  then  taken,  and  a  portion  of  it 
was  a  claim  against  the  Navy  Department. 
Whatever  else  this  committee  may  say,  they 
will  not  undertake  to  say  that  this  was  not  an 
■honest  debt  against  the  Government  of  the 
United  States.  After  examination  by  the  De¬ 
partment  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  deter¬ 
mined  that  it  was  bis  right  to  pay  for  these 
things  which  the  Navy  Department  had  used, 
and  he  ordered  the  payment  of  $75,000. 


Now  I  suppose  that  gentlemen  will  admit 
that  when  the  Government  takes  from  a  loyal 
citizen  his  property,  it  takes  it  leaving  behind 
an  implied  promise  to  pay  for  it.  Mr.  Hun- 
gerford  has  been  paid  this  $75,000,  but  there 
is  some  money  yet  due  him.  A  certain  lawyer 
in  Washington  came  before  the  committee  and 
complained  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
would  not  re-open  the  case  and  pay  the  bal¬ 
ance  due.  The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  brought 
forward  a  receipt  in  full  for  the  whole  claim. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  been  abused 
because  he  would  not  re-open  that  claim  and 
pay  the  balance,  and  we  had  before  our  com¬ 
mittee  witnesses  after  witnesses  charging  the 
Secretary  with  wrong  and  injustice  because  he 
would  not  re-open  that  claim  and  pay  more 
on  it. 

I  come  now  to  the  next  item  in  the  so-called 
indictment.  By  section  1538  of  the  Revised 
Statutes  it  is  provided  that  “no  more  than 
$3,00Cbshall  be  expended  in  any  navy  yard  in 
repairing  the  hull  and  spars  of  any  vessel 
until  the  necessity  and  expediency  of  such  re¬ 
pairs  and  the  probable  cost  thereof  are  ascer¬ 
tained  and  reported  to  the  Navy  Department 
by  an  examining  board. ”  One  of  the  grave 
accusations  made  against  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  is  that  he  has  rebuilt  the  navy  without 
reference  to  that  law. 

I  also  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  the  facts  that  while  the  Secretary  ot 
the  Navy  is  denounced  in  this  report  for  hav¬ 
ing  brought  into  the  navy  ships  unlawfully  and 
in  violation  of  that  law,  he  has  also  been  guilty 
of  suffering  the  American  navy  to  go  to  decay. 

Will  the  American  public  hold  him  guilty  of 
crime  in  rebuilding  its  decaying  navy  and,  as 
the  committee  does,  denounce  him  for  not 
having  a  larger  navy  ?  I  think  not. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  claims  that  in 
1862,  or  thereabouts,  I  do  not  remember  the 
exact  time,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the 
improper  and  improvident  building  and  repair 
of  vessels  in  the  navy  yards  of  the  United 
States  by  the  commandants  and  other  officials 
in  charge,  Congress  was  appealed  to  to  prevent 
such  expenditures  without  express  authority  of 
the  Navy  Department.  It  is  claimed  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  that  under  that  action  of 
Congress  no  officers  of  a  navy  yard  would  have 
authority  to  spend  more  than  '$3,000.  But  he 
denies,  and  I  appeal  to  the  House  to  say 
whether  that  denial  is  not  well  founded,  that 
Congress  intended  to  limit  the  power  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  make  and 
maintain  a  navy  for  the  country. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  gives  the 
authority  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy;  the 
Secretary  is  but  the  hands  of  -the  President. 
The  President  is  clothed  with  all  the  power 
over  the  Navy;  he  is  the  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  armies  and  navies  of  the  United  States. 
By  section  417  of  the  Revised  Statutes  it  is  pro¬ 
vided  that — 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  shall  execute  such 
orders  as  he  shall  receive  from  the  President 
relative  to  the  procurement  of  naval  stores  and 
materials,  and  the  construction,  armament,  equip, 
ment  and  employment  of  vessels  of  war,  as  well 
as  of  other  matters  connected  with  the  naval  es¬ 
tablishment. 

What  has  he  done?  Let  me  call  attention 
for  a  moment  to  the  first  report  made  by  him 
soon  after  he  entered  upon  his  official  duties. 
On  page  12  of  that  report  he  says  : 

Yet  we  have  not  at  this  time  on  any  foreign 


11 


station  a  squadron  whose  combined  force  would 
avail  for  a  day  against  the  powerful  sea-going 
iron-clad s  which  both  France  and  England  have 
upon  such  stations.  These  are  not  agreeable 
facts  for  contemplation  or  to  state;  but  after  giv¬ 
ing  the  subject  much  investigation  and  reflection 
I  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  state  the  truth  frankly 
to  you. 

And  mark  it,  from  that  hour  until  this. 
Congress  lias  not  passed  a  law,  has  not  made 
an  appropriation  to  build  a  ship  of  war  of  the 
class  here  referred  to.  The  only  appropria¬ 
tion  which  the  honorable  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  has  had  at  his  command,  given  to  him 
by  Congress,  was  an  appropriation  of  about 
$4,000,000  to  build  eight  sloops  of  wdr  of  not 
more  than  nine  hundred  tons  burden  each, 
and  two  torpedo  boats.  And  yet,  in  the  face 
of  this  a  great  committee  of  the  House  of  Rep¬ 
resentatives  can  come  now  and  say  to  the 
people  of  the  country,  “Behold!  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  has  suffered  our  fleet  to  go  to  de¬ 
cay  and  our  honor  to  be  tarnished  in  that  he 
has  neglected  to  put  upon  the  seas  ships  of 
war  equal  to  those  of  the  other  great  naval 
powers  of  the  world. ” 

Now  what  are  the  facts  ?  I  will  not  refer  to 
it  in  detail,  for  I  have  not  time;  but  I  will  refer 
to  the  fact  that  he  has  rebuilt  fifteen  iron-clads, 
which,  when  he  came  into  office,  could  not 
float  or  Area  gun;  they  have  been  brought  into 
good  fighting  condition.  What  else  has  he 
done  ?  There  were  our  great  double-turreted 
monitors,  built  of  white  oak,  and  therefore 
going  rapidly  to  decay,  and  had  to  be  aban¬ 
doned  or  repaired. 

What  has  he  seen  fit  to  do  ?  He  has  seen  fit 
to  take  from  the  annual  appropriations  for  con¬ 
structions  and  repairs — nobody  will  deny  it;  it 
has  been  taken  directly  from  the  appropria¬ 
tions  for  constructions  and  repairs — he  has  seen 
fit  to  take  money  from  this  source  and  save 
those  vessels  from  going  out  of  the  navy  and 
out  of  the  service,  by  putting  them  into  new 
frames  of  live  oak  and  rebuilding  their  decks  of 
iron.  They  are  hot  now  complete;  but  Admi¬ 
ral  Porter,  who  is  always  cited  by  the  commit¬ 
tee  when  he  criticises  the  Department  of  the 
Navy,  says  that  that  was  a  wise  measure;  that 
otherwise  those  vessels  would  have  been  lost 
to  the  service.  He  has  put  in  good  condition 
all  the  vessels  of  the  navy,  with  the  exception 
of  fourteen;  and  he  has  done  it  out  of  the  ap¬ 
propriations  for  constructions  and  repairs,  for 
yards  and  docks,  for  ordnance  and  steam  en¬ 
gineering,  and  any  other  statement,  by  whom¬ 
soever  made,  is  utterly  wi>  hout  foundation,  as 
I  ilnderstand  the  testimony. 

But  the  complaint  is  made  that  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  has  rebuilt  ghips.  Will  any  gen¬ 
tleman  on  this  floor  tell  me  how  can  you  re¬ 
pair  a  ship  of  white-oak  frame  if  your  frame  is 
rotten?  How  can  you  repair  an  iron-clad  moni¬ 
tor  with  a  white-oak  frame  unless-  you  begin  at 
the  keel  and  build  her  up  with  live  oak  ?  That 
is  what  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  done 
with  reference  to  these  great  monitors  and  other 
valuable  ships. 

But,  sir,  the  Secretary  is  charged  with  crime 
in  having  bartered  and  exchanged  certain  ma¬ 
terial;  and  it  is  claimed  also  that,  having  bar¬ 
tered  and  exchanged  this  material,  he  has  not 
made  returns  according  to  law;  that  in  this  he 
has  violated  the  law  and  is  liable  to  impeach¬ 
ment.  This  is  the  construction  put  upon  the 
matter  by  the  committee.  What  are  the  facts? 
Everywhere  throughout  the  report,  every¬ 
where  throughout  the  testimony,  it  will  be 


observed  that  the  subject  of  barter  and  ex¬ 
change  on  the  part  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  makes  a  prominent  figure.  What  is  the 
matter  of  barter  and  exchange?  Why,  sir,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  undertaken  tore- 
build  certain  iron-clads,  and  in  rebuilding  them 
large  quantities  of  iron  became  necessary. 
Under  the  law  he  is  authorized  to  sell  such 
vessels  as  are  not  valuable  and  such  material 
as  in  his  judgment  cannot  be  used.  Now,  Mr. 
Speaker,  old  iron  taken  from  ships  of  war  had 
accumulated  in  the  scrap  heaps  of  the  Navy 
Department.  Every  person  in  this  House 
must  recognize  the  fact  that  large  quantities 
must  have  accumulated  at  the  close  of  the 
war  and  since.  The  Secretary  saw  fit  to  make 
a  contract  with  John  Roach  and  other  similar 
manufacturers  to  take  the  old  iron  of  the 
Government  in  all  forms  and  shapes — old 
beams,  old  chains,  old  plates — everything 
which  the  Government  had  to  dispose  of,  to 
take  this  old  iron  to  their  manufactories  and 
reroll  it  into  forms  adapted  to  the  new  iron¬ 
clads,  delivering  to  the  Government  new  iron 
suitable  for  the  wants  of  the  naval  construc¬ 
tors,  at  the  rate  of  one  pound  of  new  iron  for 
three  pounds  of  old. 

But  it  is  said  this  is  a  sale;  that  in  point  of 
fact  it  is  a  sale  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
has  violated  the  law  which  provides  that  he 
shall  sell  at  public  sale  such  material.  It  is  a 
barter  of  material,  and  therefore  a  sale,  and 
the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  violated  the  law. 

I  might  spend  some  time  in  discussing  this 
question,  but  I  submit  to  the  House  if  the  Sec¬ 
retary  of  the  Navy  has  the  right  to  rework  a 
pouud  of  old  material,  and  if  he  cannot  do  it 
in  the  Government  navy  yard,  he  must  find 
some  one  who  can  do  it.  And  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  to  its  shame  be  it  said, 
has  neglected  the  recommendation  of  the  Sec¬ 
retary  of  the  Navy  made  to  a  former  Congress, 
and  it  has  no  establishment  in  the  country  of 
sufficient  power  and  with  sufficient  machinery 
to  rework  its  old  material.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  has  therefore  seen  fit  to  re-appropri¬ 
ate  it  in  this  way.  Shall  he  be  held  for  crime 
and  violation  of  law  in  doing  this  act  ? 

But  it  is  said  he  violated  the  law  in  not  making 
returns  of  this  old  iron.  The  answer  is  he  has 
sold  none.  It  is  further  said  that  this  old  iron 
cost  $20,000,000,  and  that  therefore  this  is  a 
great  outrage.  Yet  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
and  the  heads  of  the  Department  have  laid 
before  the  committee  evidence  uncontradicted 
that  its  whole  value  was  less  than  $1,000,000 
in  market  the  day  he  put  his  hand  to  it  to  re¬ 
work  it  and  reroll  it. 

It  is  said  there  has  been  misappropriation  of 
funds.  That  charge  I  deny.  I  here  inquire 
where  in  the  whole  seope  of  the  testimony  can 
be  found  the  fact  that  one  dollar  of  appropria¬ 
tion  has  been  permanently  taken  from  its 
proper  Bureau  and  given  to  another?  Except 
one — where  ? 

Why,  my  friends  on  the  other  side  do  not 
give  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  credit  for  any 
honesty.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  any  show¬ 
ing  or  standing.  Nothing  excuses  him.  No 
noble  act,  no  heroic  act,  no  act  showing  his 
love  for  the  flag  and  the  country  protects  him 
against  the  findings  of  this  committee. 

There  is  nothing  else  of  misappropriation 
except  one.  In  the  fall  of  1S73  the  Yirginius 
excitement  came  upon  the  country,  and  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy  spent  all  his  appropria¬ 
tion  to  get  the  navy  into  a  condition  of  defense. 


12 


He  came  before  the  succeeding  Congress  and 
declared  the  fact,  declared  it  to  the  country, 
declared  it  to  the  world,  and  asked  the  Con¬ 
gress  of  the  United  States  to  approve  his  con¬ 
duct  in  that  respect,  and  it  responded  with  an 
appropriation  of  $4,000,000.  And  I  say,  Mr. 
Speaker,  in  any  Congress  of  the  United  States 
where  justice  and  fair  play  prevailed,  it  would 
foe  said  on  that  matter,  the  account  is  closed; 
that  the  American  people  had  settled  it;  that 
it  had  met  with  the -.approval  ©f  all. 

Again,  during  the  last  fall,  when  the  cloud 
of  war  with  Spain  looked  threatening,  at  the 
command  of  the  President  he  expended  much  , 
money  in  preparation,  and  thus  made  himself  ! 
short  of  means,  which  would  otherwise  have 
been  at  his  commaud  to  meet  the  ordinary  cur¬ 
rent  expenses  of  the  year,  and  to  pay  on  con¬ 
tracts  for  furnishing  the  iron-clads.  This,  too, 
the  country  approved. 

I  am  told  by  my  colleague  [Mr.  Hoar]  that 
it  is  a  thing  which  the  ministry  of  England 
would  have  done  and  have  done  a  hundred 
times.  Then  should  George  M.  Robeson,  Sec¬ 
retary  of  the  Navy,  be  indicted  for  high  crimes 
and  misdemeanors  for  doing  that  which  the  in¬ 
terests  of  the  country  demanded,  which  the 
honor  of  the  flag  demanded,  which  the  Con¬ 
gress  of  the  United  States  and  the  American 
people  have  approved?  Is  it  not  a  little  late 
for  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  to  under¬ 
take  to  drag  into  the  highest  court  of  the  coun¬ 
try  Mr.  Robeson  for  this  act  ? 

I  desire  here  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  a  fact  in  relation  to  the  transactions 
of  the  Secretary  with  the  London  house  of  Jay 
Cooke,  McCulloch  &  Co.,  which  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio  [Mr.  Garfield]  from  want  of  time 
probably  omitted  to  state.  It  is  this:  that  so 
careful  and  faithful  was  he  to  the  interests  of 
his  country  that  he  took  such  ample  security  for 
ail  advances  that  not  one  dollar  will  be  lost  to 
the  Treasury.  He  should,  amid  all  this  crimi¬ 
nation  and  abuse,  have  ample  and  full  credit 
*  for  every  good  and  wise  act,  and  this  should 
not  be  omitted. 

Mr.  Speaker,  as  I  have  promised  a  few  min¬ 
utes  of  my  time  to  other  gentlemen,  I  must 
omit  some  of  the  items  of  this  indictment,  and 
come  to  the  end. 

But  before  concluding  I  desire  to  say  that 
while  the  committee  charged  with  the  duty  of 
finding  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  against 
Mr.  George  M.  Robeson  have  spent  seven 
months  in  trying  to  do  it,  they  come  at  last  to 
the  melancholy  confession  that  they  are  not 
able  upon  the  law,  or  testimony  either,  to  find 
that  fact.  They  now  say  perhaps  another 
committee  of  the  House  may  be  able  to  find  it. 
Uy  the  adoption  of  the  resolution  of  the  ma¬ 
jority  it  has  shown  that  while  “willing  to 
wound  it  was  yet  afraid  to  strike” 

I  yield  five  minutes  of  my  time  to  the  gen¬ 
tleman  from  Iowa,  [Mr.  Kasson.] 

Mr.  KASSON.  I  ask  the  Clerk  to  read  from 
the  last  page  of  the  report  of  the  majority  of 
the  committee  the  clause  I  have  marked. 

The  Clerk  read  as  follows: 

Your  committee  do  not  hesitate  to  recommend 
that  all  officers  of  the  navy  who  have  been  con¬ 
nected  with  any  of  the  frauds  and  corruptions  dis¬ 
closed  by  this  investigation  shall  be  brought  to 
speedy  trial  before  a  court-martial,  with  a  view  . 
that  if  unjustly  charged  they  may  be  vindicated, 
and  that  if  guilty  they  may  be  speedily  and  vigor¬ 
ously  punished  and  the  service  relieved;  yet  they 
do  find  in  the  case  of  the  Secretary  some  embar¬ 
rassment  in  recommending  what  shall  be  the 


measure  and  manner  of  his  punishment,  arising 
from  the  present  condition  of  the  law,  as  viewed 
by  at  least  a  portion  of  your  committee. 

Mr.  KASSON.  I  call  the  attention  of  the 
House,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  that  part  of  the  report 
just  read,  which  has  been  overlooked,  so  far  as 
I  know,  by  the  gentlemen  who  have  hitherto 
spoken.  And  I  desire  their  attention  to  it  in 
connection  with  the  resolution  with  which  the 
j  report  closes,  and  upon  which  it  is  proposed 
i  this  House  shall  vote.  That  resolution  fails 
to  ask  the  House  to  vote  a  censure;  fails  to  ask 
the  House  to  impeach;  fails  to  find  the  officers 
guilty;  fails  to  find  the  Secretary  guilty;  fails 
of  everything  with  which  it  is  customary  to 
close  a  report  upon  investigation  of  a  depart¬ 
ment  or  upon  the  conduct  of  an  official.  It 
evades  the  entire  responsibility  which  points  to 
one  man  as  the  object  of  punishment,  or  to  one 
law  as  the  object  of  repeal. 

I  am  going  to  appeal  to  the  gentlemen  upon 
the  floor  of  this  House  upon  a  point  of  national 
honor  and  of  personal  character.  The  instinct 
of  every  honorable  member  rebels  against  an 
insinuated  dishonor  upon  the  reputation  of  a 
gentleman  of  his  acquaintance.  You  withdraw 
from  it  in  disgust  as  from  an  act  of  cowardice. 
When  you  say,  suggestively  and  whisperiugly, 
if  such  a  man  did  so  and  so  he  ought  to  be 
punished,  while  you  dare  not  openly  make 
the  charge,  you  dishonor  yourself.  When 
you  say  of  George  M.  Robeson,  we 
cannot  say  whether  he  has  been  guilty, 
or  what  he  has  been  guilty  of,  or  for  what  he 
shall  be  punished,  but  recommend  that  the 
suspicions  be  referred  to  another  committee, 
who  are  to  go  over  four  thousand  printed 
pages  of  your  report,  the  work  of  seven  months, 
and  instruct  them  to  inquire  whether  they  can¬ 
not  find  that  he  has  been  guilty  of  some  offense 
for  which  he  may  be  punished,  I  affirm  that  it 
is  an  evasion,  and  that  you  are  guilty  of  con¬ 
duct.  toward  a  gentleman,  a  public  officer  of 
your  acquaintance,  which  you  would  scorn  and 
spurn  from  you  if  it  were  attempted  to  be  per¬ 
petrated  upon  yourselves.  Not  only  that,  sir, 
but  you  leave  by  the  language  of  your  report 
which  the  Clerk  has  read  the  floating  cloud  of 
dishonor  over  the  whole  corps  of  gallant  offi¬ 
cers  of  our  navy,  without  specifying  a  name 
upon  which  the,  cloud  can  rest.  Do  you  mean 
the  brilliant  officers  who  gallantly  sailed  up 
the  harbor  of  Mobile  and  there  restored  our 
flag?  Do  you  mean  the  heroes  who  so  gallantly 
broke  the  chain  of  fire  before  New  Orleans? 
Whom  do  you  mean  to  insult  and  wound  by 
the  indefinite,  calumnious  language  which  I 
have  had  read  at  the  Clerk’s  desk?  Who  is  it 
that  has  dishonored  that  country’s  service  to 
which  his  honor  was  pledged?  Who  is  it  of 
whom  you  say  that  if  he  is  not  guilty  he  ought 
to  be  indicted,  and  if  guilty  he  ought  to  be 
punished  ? 

Sir,  I  stand  here  in  defense  of  the  honor  of 
that  navy,  I  care  not  who  assails  it.  You  are 
insulting  the  flag  of  your  country  and  the  honor 
of  the  men  who  have  rendered  it  glorious  at 
home  and  abroad  on  all  the  seas  of  the  world. 
I  appeal  again  to  gentlemen,  not  politicians;  and 
I  ask  if  this  is  honorable  conduct  toward  those 
upon  whom  you  confidently  depend  for  defense 
aganst  foreign  aggressors  and  to  maintain  the 
honor  of  the  flag  and  the  country  at  the  peril 
of  their  own  honor  and  their  lives  ? 

WE  CAN  RE  JUST  AND  YET  BE  GENEROUS. 

Mr.  HARDENBERGH.  Mr.  Speaker,  the 


13 


scene  now  being  enacted  in  the  drama  of  history- 
in  this  Representative  Hall  of  the  nation  is 
strange  and  sad.  To  the  citizens  of  New  Jer¬ 
sey  it  is  clothed  with  intensest  interest.  *  *  * 
We  are  near  the  close  of  a  long  and  laborious 
session.  Eight  months  of  legislation  have 
almost  passed,  and  its  closing  hours  must  bear 
witness  to  the  honor  or  dishonor  of  a  citizen  of 
New  Jersey,  who  for  seven  years  past  has  sat 
in  Cabinet  councils  as  the  head  of  the  Naval 
Department  and  an  adviser  of  the  nation’s 
Chief  Executive.  *  *  '*  The  investigation 
has  been  long,  tedious  and  exhaustive,  extend¬ 
ing  over  seven  months.  The  results  of  that 
investigation  are  undecided.  On  the  one  hand 
the  House  is  asked  to  instruct  its  Committee 
on  the  Judiciary  to  ascertain  if  possible  whether 
articles  of  impeachment  should  be  found,  and 
on  the  other  it  is  asked  by  the  passage  of  the 
minority  resolution  to  relieve  the  Secretary 
from  any  want  of  confidence  in  the  manage¬ 
ment  of  the  Naval  Department. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss  either  the 
merits  or  demerits  of  these  reports;  but  I  have 
a  right  to  ask,  in  the  name  of  my  State,  of 
which  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  is  a  citizen, 
that,  in  the  absence  of  specific  and  distinct 
charges,  the  report  of  the  majority  of  the  com¬ 
mittee  may  be  recommitted  for  more  positive 
and  conclusive  action,  or  that  the  Committee 
on  the  Judiciary  be  instructed  to  report  without 
delay ,  that  the  Secretary  may  be  enabled  to 
make  his  defense  at  the  bar  of  the  Senate  be¬ 
fore  the  close  of  the  present  session  of  Con¬ 
gress.  It  is  a  matter  in  which  the  honor  of 
New  Jersey  is  concerned;  and,  arguing  from 
that  sense  of  justice  due  to  the  humblest  of 
her  citizens,  it  would  be  the  grossest  injustice 
to  permit  this  resolution  of  the  majority  to 
remain  without  final  action  at  this  session. 

Sir,  if  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  been 
faithless  to  his  high  trust  I  shall  not  be  his 
defender,  but  I  ask  that  prompt  and  immediate 
action  be  taken,  which  shall  insure  a  final  and 
complete  settlement  of  the  case  at  this  session. 

For  my  State  I  ask  this  act  of  justice  for 
him.  But  I  ask  it  without  his  knowledge,  and 


although  his  political  opponent  I  have  ever 
been.  *  *  *  Sir,  in  this  case  I  would  be 
generous  to  an  assailed  political  foe.  If  injus¬ 
tice  has  been  meted  out  to  him  by  practically 
denying  to  him  that  trial  before  his  peers  to 
which  every  citizen  is  entitled,  then  I  would 
shield  him  until  such  opportunity  is  afforded. 
Such  are  the  common  instincts  of  all  honorable 
Jerseymen,  and  such,  I  hope,  are  the  better 
instincts  of  our  poor  humanity.  I  would  be¬ 
lieve  him  honest  until  the  contrary  is  proved, 
for  New  Jersey  would  despise  the  unfaithful 
officer.  *  *  *  If  you  decide  to  strike,  she 
bids  you  first  to  hear.  She  will  believe  him 
innocent  until  the. Senate  of  his  country  shall 
adjudge  him  guilty.  But  venture  not,  in  the 
name  of  that  Democracy  for  the  maintenance 
of  whose  principles  we  have  so  long  struggled 
here  and  for  whom  we  are  now  appealing  to 
the  nation — dare  not,  I  beseech  you,  render 
here  your  indictment  against  a  son  of  New 
Jersey  unless  you  are  willing  to  5rield  him  a 
speedy  and  effective  trial.  New  Jersey  asks 
but  justice  and  will  abide  the  verdict. 

Mr.  WHITTHORNE.  In  accordance  with 
the  agreement  made  by  the  House,  I  now  call 
the  previous  question. 

Mr.  GARFIELD.  I  ask  the  gentleman  to 
allow  me  to  enter  a  motion  to  recommit  the 
report  of  the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs. 

Mr.  WHITTHORNE.  No,  sir;  I  must  insist 
on  my  motion. 

Mr.  GARFIELD.  I  ask  the  gentleman  to 
allow  me  to  test  the  sense  of  the  House  on  that 
question. 

The  SPEAKER  pro  tempore.  The  sense  of 
the  House  can  be  just  as  well  tested  upon  the 
motion  for  the  previous  question. 

Mr.  GARFIELD.  I  hope  the  gentleman  wiil 
let  me  enter  the  motion. 

Mr.  WHITTHORNE.  I  cannot  yield  to  the 
gentleman. 

The  question  was  put  on  seconding  the  de¬ 
mand  for  the  previous  question;  and  on  a  di¬ 
vision  there  were — ayes  81,  noes  70. 
w  So  the  previous  question  was  seconded. 

The  main  question  was  then  ordered  to  be  put. 


OFFICIAL  DOCUMENTS. 


REMARKS  OF  STEPHEN  A.  HCRLBUT,  M.  C, 

m  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  JULY  29,  187G. 


Mr.  Huklbut  :  “  Fortunately  we  have 
official  documents  that  show  in  rare  con¬ 
trasts  the  fidelity  and  honesty  of  official 
men  since  1834.  On  the  19th  day  of  June, 
1876,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  re¬ 
ported  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
a  full  and  detailed  statement  of  receipts 
and  disbursements  from  January  1,  1834, 


to  June  30,  1875  ;  and  also  the  amount  of 
defalcations  iu  gross  and  the  ratio  of  losses 
per  $1,000  to  the  aggregate  received  and 
disbursed,  in  answer  to  a  resolution  of  the 
Senate  of  February  9,  1876.” 

These  reports  are  printed  in  full  oa 
pages  14  and  15. 


14 


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length  the  result  is  substantially  correct. 


16 


Mr.  Hurlbut,  in  an  analysis  of  the  fore¬ 
going  figures,  submitted  the  following  : 

STROM  .JACKSON’S  SECOND  TERM  TO  THE  END  OP 
BUCHANAN’S  TERM. 

Gross  total  receipts  and  disbursements  from  Jan¬ 
uary  1.  1834,  to  June  31,  1 801— $2,950,454,326-44  in¬ 
cludes  loans  and  Post  Office  ;  $2,2511,350,731.01  ex¬ 
cludes  loans  and  Post  Office. 

Gross  total  losses  for  the  same  period,  (no  loss 
on  loans,)  $15,845,354. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,0C0,  including  loans  and 
Post  Office,  $5,33. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  excluding  loans  and 
Pjst  Office,  7.04. 

UNDER  LINCOLN,  JOHNSON  AND  ORANT. 

Gross  total  receipt  s  and  disbursements  from  July 
1,  1861,  to  June  3  ',1875 — $21, 576,2  »2, 801.52  includes 
loans  and  Post  Office;  $9,701,614,481.43  excludes 
,  loans  and  Post  Office. 

Gross  total  losses  for  the  same  period,  (no  loss 
on  loans,)  $14,006,776.07. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  including  loans  and 
Post  Office,  57  cents. 

Gross  total  loss  on  $1,000,  excluding  loans  and 
Post  Office,  $1.51. 

It  appears,  then,  from  the  official  records 
of  the  Treasury  Department,  prepared  in 
obedience  to  an  order  of  the  Senate,  that — 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and  disbursements 
from  the  beginning  of  Jackson’s  second  term  to 
the  end  of  Buchanan’s,  including  loans  and  Post 

Office,  was . .".$2,950,454,326  44 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and  dis¬ 
bursements  for  the  same  period, 
excluding  loans  and  Post  Office, 

was .  2,250,356,731  04 

Gross  losses .  15,845,354  00 

Ratio  of  losses  per  $1,000  on  total 
receipts  and  disbursements,  in¬ 
cluding  loans  and  Post  Office  .  .  5  36 

Ratio  on  same,  excluding  loans 
and  Post  Office . .  .  .  .  7  04 

Under  Lincoln,  Johnson  and  Grant  both 
receipts  and  disbursements  were  infinitely 
larger,  and  yet  the  gross  amount  of  losses 
was  smaller  and  the  percentage  almost 
ridiculously  disproportioned.  Thus — 

The  gross  total  of  receipts  and  disbursements,  in¬ 


cluding  loans  and  Post  Office, 

was . $25,576,202,985  32 

On  the  same,  including  loans  and 

Post  Office .  9,701,614,481  43 

Gross  losses .  14,666,776  07 

Ratio  of  losses  per  $1,000  on  total 
receipts  and  disbursements,  in¬ 
cluding  loans  and  Post  Office  .  57 

Ratio  on  same,  including  loans 
and  Post  Office .  1  51 


Thus  under  Democracy  in  its  purity  be¬ 
fore  the  war,  and  under  Republican  ad¬ 
ministration  including  the  war,  the  re¬ 
ceipts  and  disbursements  of  the  first,  in¬ 
cluding  loans  and  Rost  Office,  were  about 
one-ninth  of  the  second  ;  the  receipts  and 
disbursements  of  the  first,  including  loans 
and  Post  Office,  were  about  one-fourth  of 
those  of  the  second,  while  the  losses  and 
defalcations  of  the  Democratic  period  were 
nearly  ten  times  as  great  when  the  loaBs 
and  Post  Office  are  included,  and  four  and 
a  half  times  as  great  when  those  items  are 
excluded. 

Bat  the  table  hears  closer  investigation, 
and  you  will  find,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the 
nearer  you  come  to  this  actual  time  in 
which  we  live,  to  this  present,  existing, 
much-abused  administration  of  President 
Grant,  the  standard  of  honor  and  fidelity 
as  measured  by  the  official  reports  becomes 
higher  and  firmer. 


t 

The  very  lowest  rate  of  losses  ever 
reached  is  in  this  present  presidential 
term  : 


On  receipts . 2? 

On  disbursements . 26 

In  the  Post  Office . 53 


and  this  tabular  statement  stands  in  grand 
contrast  with  the  record  of  any  President 
of  any  party  who  has  ever  preceded  Presi¬ 
dent  Grant. 

So  much  for  the  charge  of  gross  official 
dishonesty  reaching  through  and  corrupt¬ 
ing  the  entire  Republican  party.  The  offi¬ 
cial  tables  give  the  lie  direct  to  this  whole¬ 
sale  campaign  accusation. 

Yet  in  face  of  these  known  facts  the 
Democratic  party  in  the  House  organized 
themselves  into  a  scandal-making  machine, 
took  upon  themselves  the  office  of  profes¬ 
sional  slanderers,  and  charged  every  one 
of  the  regular  committees  of  the  House, 
and  many  special  ones,  with  this  unsavory 
business.  • 

Public  business  has  been  willfully  ne¬ 
glected  ;  public  necessities  ignored,  and 
the  whole  weight  and  power  of  Congress 
devoted  to  the  manufacture  of  political 
capital  for  the  pending  election. 

Every  broken  official  kicked  out  for 
thievery,  every  cashiered  officer,  every 
nameless  vagabond  was  invited,  solicited, 
urged  to  testify.  Partly  for  revenge,  partly 
for  witness  fees,  partly  for  cheap  notoriel  y, 
these  birds  of  evil  omen  flocked  to  the 
Capitol,  thronged  the  corridors,  took  pos¬ 
session  of  the  committee-rooms  and  of  the 
committees,  prompted  questions,  invented 
answers,  retailed  old  scandals,  picked  up 
second-hand,  the  dead  refuse  of  the  streets, 
to  be  greedily  swallowed  by  the  mouths 
that  stood  agape  for  such  carrion  food. 

The  common  rights  of  individual  citi¬ 
zens  were  grossly  violated,  the  sanctity  of 
private  correspondence  outraged,  the  tele¬ 
graphic  messages  unlawfully  forced  from 
their  proper  keepers,  citizens  imprisoned 
by  order  of  the  House  for  no  valid  reason, 
and  all  the  rights  of  private  individuals 
secured  by  the  Constitution  trampled  down 
by  the  decree  of  the  House  of  Representar- 
tives.  Secret  sessions  were  held,  parties 
charged  with  wrong-doing  kept  in  ignor¬ 
ance,  and  the  poor  privilege  granted  to  all 
criminals  of  an  open  investigation  and  of 
meeting  witnesses  face  to  face  was  denied. 

In  all  this  one  single  and  most  melan¬ 
choly  case  of  official  misdoing  has  been 
undeniably  made  known,  and  that  has 
been  fairly  presented  to  the  proper  tri¬ 
bunal  by  the  active  co-operation  of  the 
Republicans  in  the  House. 

You  are  now  trying,  Mr.  Speaker,  by  a 
most  singular  report  from  the  Committee 
on  Naval  Affairs  to  smirch  the  reputation 
of  another  officer  to  whom  neither  the 
committee  nor  the  House  dare  give  the 
benefits  of  cross-examination  of  witnesses 
and  of  an  open  impeachment  and  a  fair 
trial  before  the  Senate  and  the  nation. 


